


Beauty and the Chief

by Greenskirt_Girl



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Cunnilingus, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Lemon, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, Sexual Tension, Shameless Smut, Spoilers, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:14:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 66,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7506118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenskirt_Girl/pseuds/Greenskirt_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That purple haired vault girl was breaking all the rules and turning Rivet City upside down. Harkness thinks she's trouble, but can't quite work out his feelings for her. She's trying to find her father, he's trying to find his humanity; can they build a relationship in the post-apocalyptic Capital Wasteland with all that stands between them? Written for the Fallout Big Bang 2016 Challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nacho Fruit

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost, I'd like to thank my wonderful husband, beta and co-author, for putting up with incessant discussions about the characters' motivations, and for providing me with Harkness' point of view. I wouldn't have finished this without him.
> 
> Also, a preemptive thanks to all who read this. Comments and critiques are welcome; I'd love to hear what you all think of my style.
> 
> I've added the cover art, done by the talented Pipedream; check her out on Tumblr [here](https://pipemusings.tumblr.com/). I'll be posting a playlist for this work as well, with each chapter's songs listed at the beginning. Some songs are what I happened to be listening to while I was writing, and some were chosen to evoke a specific mood. Enjoy!
> 
> Bethesda owns all characters; I only own a few of Elle's personality quirks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for the first three chapters (Nacho Fruit, Sins of the Father, Shots of Confidence) is Gotye feat Kimbra - Somebody That I Used to Know. Yes, I listened to the same song over and over while writing three chapters. I'm weird like that.

** **

 

**Nacho Fruit**

  
**Trielle**

  
I knew I shouldn’t have stolen that succulent green fruit in Doctor Li’s lab. My gut told me it was a bad idea, but frankly, I just couldn’t resist another taste of forbidden paradise. I knew I was in trouble when Rivet City security dragged me into the security chief’s office, followed by an irate Doctor Li, still fuming and blowing the whole thing way out of proportion for one fruit, I thought.

  
“Nasty little sneak thief…stealing my fruit…after all I’ve done for you…can’t believe…James’ daughter.”

  
“What’s going on here, Madison?” That was Harkness, the security chief, whom I’d met when I first got to Rivet City. Maybe ‘met’ is the wrong word. He’d challenged me at the entrance as soon as I got over the bridge. I’ll admit, I drooled a little; the man positively radiated sex appeal, and he was **gorgeous**. Straight brown hair, not too long, not too short, a tightly muscled body in fitted armor, and piercing grey eyes that seemed to look into my very soul. Okay, so I’m exaggerating that last bit, but he definitely gave me the once over in a manner that gave me the good kind of shivers. I honestly don’t know which made me squirm more, the man himself, or the wicked looking energy rifle he had slung over his back. I longed to touch the gun with an intensity that surprised me. I had become something of a gun nut since leaving Vault 101, and his was by far the nicest weapon I had come across.

  
While I was internally juggling my dilemma, man or gun, man or gun, he whipped out another rifle, this one a Chinese assault rifle like mine, from somewhere on his person, and pointed it at me, which gave me momentary pause. Why, I don’t know; I’d certainly had enough guns pointed at me and used on me since I left the vault, what was one more? Maybe it was the idea that this big, muscular man thought little old me threatening enough to hold at gunpoint. I giggled a bit at the thought, which didn’t endear me to him at all. He scowled and demanded to know why I had come to Rivet City. Once we established that he hadn’t seen Dad, but that I could go talk to Doctor Li, I decided it was time to stop poking the yao guai, thanked him, and said my goodbyes. As I walked past him toward the door to the marketplace, I swear I could feel his eyes on my ass, but I wasn’t about to turn around to find out. _There’s no way_ , I thought to myself. _He’s not interested in you. Nobody is, not with that damned purple hair Dad cursed you with._ I really did love my hair, genetically engineered to be the bright bluish purple that was Mom’s favorite color, but it got me a lot more attention than I ever wanted. The kids in the vault used to call me ‘Purple Headed Freak.’ For a girl that just wanted to fit in, this was crushing.

  
I had been tuning out the conversation Doctor Li was having with Harkness about my crimes, which I’m sure ranged from simple thievery to a plot to blow up the boat with stolen Talon Company tech. I hung in the security guard’s grip, head hung low in a posture of abject shame. I wasn’t really sorry that I’d stolen the fruit, but it was downright embarrassing to be dragged into Harkness’ office like a recalcitrant child before the overseer. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

  
I heard rapid boot steps approach me, then Harkness put two fingers under my chin and jerked my head up so I was looking in his eyes. His gaze searched my face for a long moment, in which all I could do was stare at him, wide eyed and scared. I didn’t doubt for one moment that he would pitch me off the observation deck and claim I fell, if it suited his purpose.

  
“We are going to have a long talk about that behavior I warned you about,” he said in a hard voice. “And then I’ll decide what to do with you. You can get back to the science lab now, Madison.”

  
“You **are** going to punish her, aren’t you, Harkness?” Doctor Li spoke up. “If she’ll steal fruit, what will she steal next?”

  
“We’ll see.” That was all he said, before turning around and heading back to his desk.

  
“But…,” Doctor Li protested.

  
“That will be all, Doctor Li,” Harkness said. “Please return to the science lab.”

  
After she left, still huffing over the way he spoke to her, Harkness turned to the security guard who had frog-marched me in here and was still holding my arms uncomfortably high behind my back. “Put her in the chair over here,” he gestured to the metal chair in front of his desk, “then go back on patrol.”

  
“But sir,” the guard protested as he deposited my unrestrained self in the chair. “She could be dangerous.”

  
I swear Harkness rolled his eyes at that, but I couldn’t be sure. “I think I can handle myself against one unarmed girl half my size, don’t you, officer? You have your orders.”

  
When the officer had left and we were alone in the room, Harkness sat down heavily behind his desk and rubbed his hand over his face tiredly.  
“I thought I warned you what misbehaving on my boat would get you?” he said in a deadly voice. He stood up so quickly I almost didn’t see him move, and leaned over the desk towards me. “What the hell did you think you were doing, stealing from Doctor Li?!” he thundered, slamming his hands down on the edges of the desk.

  
“I’m sorry!” I blurted, truly frightened now. “I…I didn’t mean to steal it. Well, I did mean to steal it, but I didn’t mean to get caught.” When, oh when would I learn not to say exactly what was on my mind? He glowered at me, and I backpedaled from my statement. “I…couldn’t help myself.” He started to come around the desk at me, and I shrieked and held up my hands in front of my face, expecting some kind of physical violence on his part. I could take a bullet without flinching, but this man simultaneously terrified and aroused me, my feelings about him getting all mixed up with each other.

  
My posture gave him pause, long enough for me to say, “Let me explain.” He sat back down, and I continued. “You have to understand, I just got out of a vault. I spent my whole life, never seeing, much less tasting, any food that didn’t come out of a box or a can. I know that doesn’t excuse my stealing, but when I saw those…whatever they are…I just lost it. I nicked one yesterday,” I confessed, though I hadn’t meant to admit to the one they hadn’t caught me with. “It was so pretty, and smelled so good, so fresh, that I just couldn’t resist it, so I put it in my pocket and walked off with it.” I sighed at the memory. “I ran straight up to the observation deck, cut it open with my boot knife, and scarfed it down so fast I almost choked on the seeds. I got a little sick after that, I think because my body’s not used to fresh food, and because I ate it so fast.” I gave him a pitiful look. “I really didn’t mean to steal another one, but I was back in the science lab this morning to ask Doctor Li some more questions about where Dad went, and they were just sitting there, begging me to eat them.

  
“So I put another one in my pocket, and I was trying to decide if any of the other fruits on the table would taste as good when I felt the barrel of a gun against the back of my neck. I guess Doctor Li knew I stole the first fruit and set a trap for me. I’m still kicking myself for letting my attention lapse like that; I’d be deathclaw bait if I’d done that out in the wasteland. Security guard went through my pockets, found the fruit I’d already taken, so he dragged me out of the lab and passed me off to his friend who dragged me up here, and you know the rest of it.” I let out a long breath. “So that’s why I stole it. That, and …Doctor Li said something mean about my dad,” I finished lamely.

  
“What did she say about your father?”

  
I frowned with remembered anger. “She said he was an overemotional coward for running away from Project Purity after Mom died giving birth to me. She thought he should have stayed, even though he had a motherless newborn to take care of. My dad’s not a coward!” I burst out angrily. “Doctor Li’s just being a bitch for no reason!”

  
“I see,” Harkness said, noncommittally. “Did it ever occur to you to pay for the fruit?”

  
“I went to the marketplace after I tasted the first one, trying to find some more, but all they had was the same old canned crap I’ve been eating for nineteen years. I would have offered to pay Doctor Li for some, but then she said what she did about Dad, and I just snapped.”

  
Through my whole recitation, I had felt Harkness’ eyes on me, like cold fire burning into me. When I was done, I thought he was going to yell at me some more, but he blew me away by leaning back in his chair and laughing. I goggled at him, since that was all I seemed to be able to do around him, stare at him like I’d lost my mind.

  
When he finished laughing, Harkness leaned forward again and pinned me with his eyes. “Believe it or not, I understand where you’re coming from. The first time I tasted some of the fruit from the hydroponics lab, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The newness has kind of worn off, but it is nice to have an apple now and again.” He winked at me and pulled a red fruit, which I assumed was the apple he’d mentioned, out of his desk drawer, and handed it to me.

  
“Don’t make this a habit.” He glared at me. “I’ll excuse you, just this once because we all do dumb things when we’re young, but I meant what I said about you causing trouble on my boat.” He shook his head. “I want you to pay Doctor Li whatever she thinks is fair for the fruit you took. I’d order you to do scut work for her, but somehow I think that would cause more problems than it would solve.”

  
Harkness stood up and came around the desk again, offering me a hand up out of my hard chair. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet with an ease that shocked me. I knew the man was strong, but damn! The ship chose that moment to shift and I was thrown against his wide chest, struggling to stay on my feet. He caught me around the waist to steady me, one hand on my hip, and the other squarely on my left buttock. The feeling of his big, warm hand on my backside was causing some strange feelings in the pit of my stomach. _Calm down_ , I ordered myself. _He didn’t do that on purpose, he just grabbed the nearest part of you to keep you from falling down. He doesn’t mean anything by it._

 

He held me for a long moment, helping me find my balance, and then slowly took his hands off me. I swear he squeezed my butt a little before he let go, but that was probably just my heated imaginings.

  
“Get out of here,” he said. “And **don’t** cause any more trouble on my boat. I really don’t want to have to pitch you off the observation deck.”

  
I turned to leave his office, and felt a disturbance in the air, right before his hand connected with my backside in a hard smack, doing all sorts of fluttery things to my insides. _What the fuck_ , I thought? _I **know** that wasn’t accidental._ I blushed and turned to give him a hard look, but couldn’t quite manage it when I saw the smirk on his face.

  
“Stay out of trouble,” Harkness said, and slammed his office door in my surprised face.


	2. Sins of the Father

**Sins of the Father**

  
**Harkness**

  
Once we’d straightened out the whole mess with the stolen fruit, I sent the kid on her way with a strict admonition not to do that again, nor steal from anyone else in Rivet City. She’d given me a wide eyed look with those big green eyes of hers that told me she understood what would happen if I caught her breaking the law on my boat again. The same big green eyes that had hit me like a punch to the gut when I first met her, outside the main door to the marketplace. As she crossed the bridge I could just tell she was gonna be a pain in my ass before too long. This girl looked as though trouble followed her around like a lost puppy.

  
Big green eyes, a wide open face with freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose, and a body that looked too damn good, even in the rather bulky armor she wore, armor that obviously wasn’t made for her. Removing her helmet as she drew close, I could see that she had short, shaggy hair in a vivid shade of purple that I was sure wasn’t natural. But, then again, you never know with some people’s parents. Kid looked like she was about nineteen, which I later found out was spot on, but she had a Chinese assault rifle slung over her shoulder in a manner that said she knew what to do with it.

  
“I’m looking for my father,” she had said, when I asked her what her business in Rivet City was.

  
“And who might your father be? If he lives on this boat, I know him,” I said.

  
“His name is James. Dr. James Miraven. Older man with gray hair and a beard. And no, he doesn’t live here. He came here to see Doctor Li.”

  
It took me a moment to respond to what she said; I was too busy staring at her lips when she spoke. Soft, pink, kissable lips. I lost myself for a moment imagining them wrapped around my…whoa! Just because I hadn’t gotten laid in far too long, my mind was going places it definitely didn’t need to be going. _Down, killer_ , I told myself. _Remember, you’ve seen too many guys get their heads blown off because they were too busy staring at a nice piece of ass to see what was sneaking up behind them. Besides, she’s somebody’s daughter, and you’re what, like twice her age? How damaged would she have to be to get involved with you anyway?_

  
She shifted a little under my gaze, straightening her spine, waiting for me to answer her. The movement drew my attention to her breasts, and it was damn hard to focus on the conversation when she took a deep breath. “Doctor Li, eh? Well then I guess you’d have to ask Doctor Li for more information. I haven’t seen your father. He probably came in while I was off duty.”

  
She stared at me with those wide green eyes, looking a bit lost and sad. I relented a bit and tried to make my tone friendlier. “Go on up, then. She’s probably in the science lab.” And then, remembering that I thought she was gonna be trouble, I said more harshly, “But keep your nose clean, you hear me? You make trouble on my boat; I’ll throw you out the nearest porthole.”

  
“Got it,” she stammered. “Thanks for the help.”

  
“Carry on then,” I growled. She walked past me toward the marketplace and I couldn’t help but turn and stare at her retreating backside. Damn, I bet I could bounce a bottlecap off that ass. An old line I’d heard once flashed into my head, ‘I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you walk away.’

  
That same ass had almost gotten me in big trouble when we were alone in my office. I had indulged in a little groping when she lost her balance as the boat shifted in the water. I was sure she was going to call me on it, but other than getting a little red in the face, she didn’t seem to notice. Then I remembered that Madison Li had insisted she be punished, so I made sure she noticed when I smacked her ass on her way out of my office. I just couldn’t resist another handful, since I didn’t think she’d be letting me bounce a bottlecap off it any time soon. She turned around to give me a dirty look, but something in her gaze said that it didn’t bother her as much as it should have, even though she was blushing. Had I bitten off more than I could chew? The kid’s about as menacing as a lollipop, speaking of things I wanted to lick all over, but I had to remind myself, her body count might be higher than mine. She said she came from Vault 101 by way of Megaton, and there’s a hell of a lot of assholes that need killing between here and there.

  
I waited a few minutes after ushering the kid out of my office before going down to the science lab, figuring that was the last place I’d find her right now. I really didn’t want to listen to Madison bitch anymore, but thought I’d better get that conversation out of the way before she had a chance to find something else to complain about.

  
“Well, Harkness, did you punish her for stealing?” she demanded the minute my boots hit the deck plating inside the door to the lab.

  
“She won’t do it again, Madison.”

  
“She’d better not do it again. I won’t tolerate scummy little thieves in my lab. But that’s not what I asked. Did you punish her?”

  
“I spanked her,” I said, dead serious, but Madison seemed to think I was joking.

  
“I don’t want to hear about your sexual fantasies,” she grimaced. “I just want to know what you’re going to do about her. I’ve worked very hard on the hydroponics project, and to have some wastelander stealing the sweat of my brow is intolerable, even if she is James’ daughter.” She’d gotten herself worked up by this point, unreasonably so, I thought.

  
“Calm down, Madison,” I said. “She’ll be paying you whatever you think is fair for the fruit she stole, but other than that, I don’t think anything else needs to be done. She apologized for stealing, and she won’t do it again. You’re ready to crucify her over one little indiscretion.” I gave her a narrow-eyed look. “What’s this **really** about? You can’t be this upset over one piece of fruit. You can take it out of my ration if it makes you feel better.”

  
Madison turned away from me, so I couldn’t see her expression. “I’m upset about James,” she said.

  
“The kid’s father.” This wasn’t a question; I already knew that he’d been to see Madison, about what, I had no idea. All that sciency bullshit wasn’t really my area of expertise.

  
“Yes. The kid’s father, and former colleague of mine on a very important project.” She sighed heavily. “I was in love with him once, you know? But he loved Catherine, not me, so I stepped aside gracefully. Then when she died after giving birth to that little shit out there, James fell apart. I spent months pulling him out of the bottle of scotch he was determined to drown himself in, and what thanks do I get? He abandoned the project, and me, and went god knows where, only to show up twenty years later and act like he never left.”

  
“Are you really surprised, Madison?” I asked quietly. “After all, he abandoned his own kid to the tender mercies of his vault’s overseer; a man he knew took the duties of his office way too seriously. I asked around about her a bit, and rumor has it she almost died at the hands of that power crazed man who wanted to punish her for the sins of her father. Sound familiar?”

  
Madison gave me a helpless look. “I know, I know, I’m overreacting. It’s just…James says he wants to restart Project Purity and then runs off to the Jefferson Memorial, and next thing I know, his little girl is in my lab, stealing my fruit and asking uncomfortable questions about her daddy. And looking at me with those eyes. His eyes.”

  
I felt bad for her, I really did. Nobody likes to have their life disrupted by a ghost from the past. But I couldn’t let her keep taking it out on the kid. “Look, Madison, I’m sorry the kid’s dad upset you, but you can’t punish her for something her father did to you twenty years ago. I’ll keep her out of your lab, and lets all try not to kill each other, okay. It’s a real bitch getting blood off the deck plating.”

  
“Alright, Harkness, I’ll let it go, for now,” Madison said.

  
“Anything else I can do for you while I’m here?” I asked, even though I just wanted to get up to my small room off the ship’s bridge and catch some shut eye.

  
“There’s some crazy doctor named Zimmer who’s been hanging around my lab with his ‘bodyguard,’ asking about some android he thinks is on the ship…”


	3. Shots of Confidence

**Shots of Confidence**

  
**Trielle**

  
After spending a largely sleepless night in Rivet City’s common room, I’d gone straight out to the flight deck to pace as soon as the sun came up. Dumb, right? I’ve been walking for days, walking somewhere ever since I ran away from the only home I’ve ever known, and when I get stressed what do I do? Walk some more. The only thing on my mind right now to was to stay out of Doctor Li’s way…and Harkness’ reach. I wandered aimlessly around for an hour or so, until the rumbling in my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t had anything to eat today.

  
I went down to the marketplace, stopping for a minute at Bannon’s to see if he had anything to repair my armor with. I had been to Gary’s Galley before, the only ‘restaurant’ in Rivet City, but I hadn’t met the young blonde woman behind the counter before.

  
“Welcome to Gary’s Galley. Dad’s busy right now, so I can get you anything you want. I’m Angela Staley.”

  
“Pleased to meet you, Angela,” I said. “I’m Trielle Miraven, but you can call me Elle.”

  
“I love your hair, Elle,” she said enviously. “That’s a wicked shade of purple. Is it natural?”

  
“Unfortunately,” I grimaced. “It’s genetically engineered this way.”

  
“Cool. I wish my hair was that color.”

  
“Funny,” I said, “I always wished my hair was your color.”

  
We had a laugh over this while I perused the menu and finally ordered a bowl of Sugarbombs with Brahmin milk. When she turned away from the counter to get my breakfast, I caught a glimpse of the paper she’d been doodling on when I walked up, which she hastily shoved in her pocket. Prominently featured was the name Diego, with hearts around it.

  
“So, Diego, huh?” She gave me a sheepish look. “Are you and Diego in love?”

  
Angela frowned. “Well, one of us is. Sometimes I’m not sure he even knows I’m there.”

  
I rolled my eyes in commiseration. “Men, right? Sometimes you have to hit them over the head with something large and heavy to get things through their thick skulls. Have you tried telling him how you feel, maybe give him a kiss to illustrate your point?”

  
“Yeah, right,” Angela said, dubiously. “I don’t have the courage for that. I get all tongue-tied when I’m around him. I wish I had some ant pheromones. Trinnie says they would make any man lose control. One sniff of that and he’d be all over me.”

  
“Wait a minute,” I held up my hand. “You don’t have to resort to chemical means just yet. If it’s that hard for you, I’ll go talk to Diego, sound him out a bit. You’re a pretty girl; he can’t have failed to notice that.”

  
“Would you really, Elle?” Angela gave me a brilliant smile. “I’d be so grateful if you could see if he feels the same.”

  
“No problem, Angela. I’ll be back later and we’ll talk some more.” She brought me my cereal, and I took the bowl to the only table that wasn’t completely full. A nervous looking Asian woman was sitting there, hunched over her breakfast like she expected to get shot in the back.

  
“Mind if I sit here?” I asked, gesturing to all the other full tables.

  
“Stay away from me!” she almost screamed. _Okay_ , I thought, _I know I’m a little scruffy looking, but I don’t usually inspire this level of terror in people I’ve never met before._

  
“What do you want?” she continued. “Are you one of them?”

  
“Um, what?” I said stupidly. I really hadn’t gotten enough sleep for this to make sense. Then I recalled that I was rather heavily armed, even in the middle of Rivet City, and that might be off putting to some people. Keeping my hands well away from my guns, I said, “I’m not going to hurt you.” When she still looked at me like I might eat **her** for breakfast, I figured it wasn’t my guns that were frightening her. “What are you so scared of?” I asked gently.

  
She gestured for me to sit down. “I suppose it doesn’t matter if I tell you,” she said heavily. “My name is Mei Wong. I used to be a slave, but I escaped from Allistair Tenpenny and made my way to Rivet City. I was just looking to start a new life as a free woman, and I thought I’d gotten away clean, but…” She trailed off, clearly still frightened of telling me the whole story.

  
“But something happened that made you think otherwise,” I finished for her.

  
She nodded mutely. “I saw a slaver on this ship. His name is Sister, and he hangs out in the Muddy Rudder most of the time. I’m afraid he’s after me.”

  
“Don’t worry,” I said, reassuringly. “I would never turn in a runaway slave.”

  
Her face brightened at this. “Really? Oh, thank you, thank you!” She grasped my hands. “You seem like a capable person. Can you help me? I’ve been so worried with him around. I can hardly sleep at night.”

  
I knew just how she felt, always running, always looking over your shoulder. “Tell you what,” I said, “let me finish my breakfast, then you and I will go to Flak and Shrapnel’s and pick out a gun, if that would make you feel better?”

  
“Oh, it would. Only…I don’t know how to use a gun.” She looked ashamed at her lack of skill.

  
“I can fix that.” I patted her hand. “I’ll ask Harkness if there’s anywhere on this boat we can get some practice, and in a few hours you’ll be putting holes in tin cans from a hundred yards.” Speaking of the devil, the man himself had just walked into the marketplace and sidled up to the counter at the galley. I might have been imagining it, but he didn’t look like he’d gotten any more sleep than I had. I got up from the table and went over to the counter myself, careful to stay just out of arms reach of him. The Sugarbombs I’d just eaten were putting a bounce in my step that belied my few meager hours of sleep.

  
“Kid,” he nodded at me, looking disgruntled at my seeming energy. “Caused any more trouble since I gave you that spanking?”

  
“No, sir, Chief Harkness, sir,” I sassed, trying like hell to keep a straight face. What was it about me that I just couldn’t leave well enough alone with this man? Something about him made me want to exercise the smart mouth that had always gotten me in trouble growing up in the vault.

  
I can only attribute lack of sleep on Harkness’ part for what he said to me next. He gave me a sidelong glance and said, “It’s way too early for you to be doing anything with that mouth of yours except putting it on certain parts of my anatomy not to be discussed in polite company.” He looked at Angela, whose mouth had fallen open at his comment. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, chicken shit?”

  
Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of doing the same, I forgot that I was trying to stay out of his reach and patted him on the shoulder. “Maybe later, sir. Perhaps once I finish warming up on the firing range, if you’ll be so kind as to direct me there.” I danced back out of the way, seeing that look in his eyes that said he was about to grab me and make me pay for mouthing off to him. “But only if you can drink me under the table first,” I drawled, intent on seeing just how far I could push him. I’m such a lightweight that I’d be in real trouble if he took me up on it.

  
“Far end of the flight deck, past the baseball field. Try not to kill anyone today.” He took a key out of his pocket and tossed it to me. “This is for security’s personal ammo stash. Don’t use it all up, and put the empties in the barrel next to the boxes.”

  
“Very good, sir,” I gave him a cocky salute, and I swear I heard him growl under his breath. As I turned to walk away, his hand snaked out with almost inhuman speed, and I’ll be goddamned if he didn’t slap me on the butt again.

  
“That’s so you know,” he said, cryptically, and proceeded to laugh his ass off as I scurried away.

  
After spending some time going over weapons with Mei and Flak, with Shrapnel looking on, a bemused expression on his face at my enthusiasm for all things that go bang, we finally settled on a small .32 caliber pistol, since it didn’t have much recoil and the ammo wasn’t hard to find. I paid for it, and several boxes of ammo for later, Mei protesting that I shouldn’t be spending so much money on a complete stranger. I waved off her protests with a smile. “Hey, we girls gotta look out for each other, right?

  
“This’ll be a good gun for you,” I said as we headed toward the flight deck and the promised firing range. “If you ever get a hunting rifle, you can use the same ammo in it, and it’s cheap and easy to get. Plus, there’s like a million of these guns running around out there, so you’ll never have trouble getting parts to repair it with.”

  
As we passed the baseball diamond on the flight deck, I was surprised to see that there were already targets set up, and they looked as though they were used regularly. “Remind me not to piss off any more Rivet City security guards.” There were several boxes of rusted tin cans, and more complicated targets set up to look like a human, a super mutant, and to my delight, a mirelurk. That one would provide a real challenge, since there was only one small spot on its face where a bullet would do any measurable damage.

  
I ran Mei through a quick gun safety course: always assume the gun is loaded, point it in a safe direction, don’t pull it unless you intend to use it, and always shoot to kill. Then I taught her the six steps of taking a shot, just like Officer Gomez had explained them to me when I was ten and practicing with my first BB gun.

  
By the time my stomach started growling again, we’d gone through several hundred rounds of ammo, and I was impressed by how quickly Mei learned. She had a natural talent for shooting that rivaled some of the security guards on the ship. I was all ready to call it quits for the day, but I could feel eyes on me, the same eyes that had been watching me intently for the better part of an hour. I knew exactly who it was, and I couldn’t help showing off a little.

  
“Let me show you what you could do if you keep practicing every day,” I told Mei. “Do you mind?” I held out my hand for the pistol and she gave it to me readily. I pulled several speed loaders out of my pocket, demonstrating how to use them, and strategically placed them on the ammo box next to me. I loaded five rounds into the gun, firing them off in quick succession, ejected the spent cartridges, reloaded with a speed loader, and repeated several times. When I was done, all of the tin cans had been knocked off the boxes; the mirelurk target had five holes in the ‘eye,’ the super mutant had two in the eyes and three in the center of the chest, forming a perfect triangle, and the human target had them…a bit lower.

  
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I heard from behind me. “So you **can** shoot all those guns you carry around with you.”

  
I turned to smirk at Harkness. “Did you ever have any doubt?” I was about to take a bow, when I heard Mei gasp, followed by the unmistakable buzz of a bloatfly. Three, unless I missed my guess. There must be a nest somewhere near our shooting range and the gunfire woke them up. Pivoting on one foot, I loaded the last speed loader into the gun and fired. Two bullets apiece for the first two flies, one for the last, which wasn’t quite enough to finish it off, until I heard a 10mm bullet go whizzing past my head and impact the last fly with a sickening splatter and crunch. Damn, where had he been hiding that in his formfitting armor? _Holy shit_ , I thought, _he hit it in the eye! That’s the hardest place to hit something that never stops moving for more than a second. And that kind of trigger control on an SMG, to only fire one bullet out of a thirty round magazine on a gun that’s fully auto…wow!_

  
“I know what I’m having for lunch.” I pulled out my boot knife and pretended to skewer one of the flies. “Only joking,” I laughed when Harkness raised an eyebrow and Mei made a gagging noise and clapped a hand over her mouth. “I haven’t had to eat anything this disgusting since my first day out of the vault.”

  
Mei gave me a wide eyed look. “Trielle, you’re bleeding.” I glanced down at where she was pointing, and sure enough, there were a couple of spiked bloatfly larva embedded in my right arm. They hurt like a bitch once she mentioned it, but I wasn’t about to let Harkness see me act like a girl about it.

  
“No biggie,” I said, bravely. “I’ve had worse.” I used the tip of my knife to dig the larva out, biting my lip as I did to keep from crying. When I had finished, I pulled a little bottle of rubbing alcohol out of my pocket and splashed some on my arm, then holstered my knife as nonchalantly as I could manage.

  
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Lone Wanderer has left the building.” I turned away so Harkness wouldn’t see the sweat and other things on my face. “It’s time for lunch,” I tossed over my shoulder.

  
Mei came after me as I was headed to the Galley to get something for lunch. “Thank you,” she said fervently. “I feel so much safer now.” She gave me a quick hug on my non-injured side. “I don’t have anything to give you, but tonight’s my bath night and I’ll put in a good word for you with the matron. If you have some Rad-X and RadAway to trade, I’m sure they’ll let you have a water ration even though you don’t have a ration card.”

  
“I wasn’t sure if water for baths was even available on this boat, so I’ve been giving myself sponge baths with bottles of dirty water I picked up.”

  
“Anyone who’s been here longer than three months gets a bath once a week and enough water to sponge off with the rest of the week. We bathe in rotation, since the water condensers that purify the water can’t handle the whole boat on the same night. Bring your clothes and you can get them washed at the same time. I didn’t want to say anything earlier because you had a gun in your hand, but you kinda stink,” she said, and mimed holding her nose.

  
“Well, wandering around the waste for weeks at a time will do that to you. I’ve taken a couple of dunks in the river, but that’s not much better than not washing at all, what with all the rads and trash in the water. It **would** be nice to get really clean and wear some clean clothes.”

  
“I’ll come by later when it’s time and pick you up,” she said. “Are you staying in the common room?”

  
“I was, but I’m going to splurge a little and get a room at the Weatherly,” I said. “I need some serious R &R before I go back out in the waste to look for Dad.” I slapped my forehead. “Speaking of the Weatherly, I need to talk to Vera about her nephew, Bryan. He needs a place to stay after those fire ants killed his father and decimated Grayditch.”

  
“Well, I’ll meet you in the marketplace after dinner and we can go back to the hotel and get your stuff,” Mei said. “Bring some caps so you can buy soap and stuff.”

  
I thanked her and continued on to the marketplace, where I bought a Salisbury steak sandwich and a Nuka Cola, and took them up to the observation deck to eat in peace. I still had the apple that Harkness had given me the previous day, and it made a fine addition to my lunch. As I was finishing my fruit and wondering how far down the Potomac River I could float an empty cola bottle, I heard the door open and an older man came out on the deck, obviously not seeing me. He walked over to the section with no railing and stood very close to the edge, looking down with a sad expression on his face. Not wanting to startle him, I got up quietly and stood next to him, ready to grab him if he looked like he was going to fall.

  
“Nice up here, isn’t it?” I asked, making small talk. Something told me he wasn’t just admiring the view.

  
“Yes, it’s beautiful. You can see for miles from up here.”

  
“I’m Trielle Miraven,” I said, holding out my hand to shake his. “I’m new to Rivet City.”

  
“I’m Mister Lopez,” he replied, shaking my hand in a firm grip. “Don’t mind me; I’m just taking up space here.”

  
“Surely not? I’ve met way more people who were more of a waste of space than you are.” I winked at him. “I bet you know some great stories. I can just tell.”

  
He sighed. “No one remembers me, or if they do, they just don’t care. I don’t know if I even care anymore. I wish I had the courage to end it all.”

  
“But why?” I asked. “Even though the world has gone to shit, every day the sun still comes up is worth living. Every day you wake up is worth living.” _Every day I get to tease Harkness until he gives me that look and says something crass is worth living_ , I thought. “Death is the easy way out, and you don’t look like a quitter.”

  
“I’m a worthless failure,” he moaned, tears running down his face. “I let my wife and child get killed by raiders, and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. I have nothing to live for. I wish the raiders had killed me too.”

  
I put my arm around his thin shoulders, feeling them shake as he sobbed. “Sometimes things happen for a reason, Mister Lopez. Maybe the reason you’re still here is because you still have something left to do. Someone you **can** save.” I leaned closer to him, drawing him away from the edge as I did so. “Listen, there’s this other kid I met in the common room last night, same age as me. Ted Strayer. Do you know him?”

  
“I’ve met him once or twice.”

  
“Here’s the thing. Ted doesn’t know how to read, doesn’t know how to do much of anything except get high and wander around Rivet City causing trouble. He could use a role model, someone to keep him from ending up like all the other assholes I’ve met out in the waste.” I looked him square in the eye. “Someone like you, Mister Lopez.” I shook him lightly. “Please don’t throw your life away. There are people here who still need you.”

  
He seemed dazed for a minute, that a perfect stranger would give a damn about whether he lived or died, but he gave me a small smile and said, “I suppose I could talk to him. He is kind of a lost boy.” I let go of his shoulders and he grasped my hands. “This is the first time I’ve been glad to meet someone who isn’t from Rivet City. Thank you stranger.” I smiled back at him.

  
“Just call me Elle.”

  
************

  
After going down to the Weatherly, paying for a room and moving my stuff in, I spoke to Vera Weatherly, a nice blonde woman in her late twenties. She was happy to hear that her nephew Bryan was still alive after the events in Grayditch, and said she’d be glad to give him a home with her. I promised to send him along with the next merchant caravan to come through Grayditch. I stashed my stuff in the room, which had a queen sized bed I longed to collapse into, but not until I’d had a bath and cleaned my clothes.

  
I headed down a deck and followed the signs to Saint Monica’s church, where I had been told I would find Diego, the love of Angela Staley’s life. When I entered the church, I saw a young man, perhaps a year younger than myself, lighting candles on the altar. I assumed this must be the famous Diego. I could see why Angela liked him. In addition to being handsome, he had an air of competence about him that would be attractive to any woman. He turned and nodded his head when he saw me.

  
“Welcome,” he said. “I’m Diego, the acolyte for Saint Monica’s church.”

  
“I’m Trielle Miraven.” We shook hands and chatted about the church for a minute or two. He informed me that Father Clifford, the priest of the church, would have to take any donation I wanted to make. When I thought we’d had enough idle chatter, I brought up the subject of Angela. “I’m actually here on a mission of mercy, or something like that.” He looked confused, so I continued. “Angela Staley has a bit of a crush on you, and wants to know if you feel the same for her.”

  
He gave me a startled look, but a gleam in his eyes said he wasn’t displeased to know Angela had the hots for him. His next words belied the gleam I saw. “What do you mean? I’m a man of the cloth! Well, I will be as soon as Father Clifford…never mind. It doesn’t matter what Angela thinks. Soon I will take vows of chastity.”

  
I looked him in the eye and asked, “So you can honestly say you’ve never thought about Angela in a…less than pure way? That all you feel for her is friendship?”

  
“Of course I’ve thought about Angela. She’s very sweet, and very hardworking, and very…sexy.” He swallowed hard and continued. “But Father Clifford says she is my trial. My temptation. I must choose between her and the Church, and I have chosen the Church.”

  
Well, shit. How do you argue with logic like that? I wasn’t even going to try, but there had to be some way to resolve this without breaking Angela’s heart or making Diego feel like he had been forced into anything.

  
Just then, an older man in a sweater vest walked in, and Diego motioned him over. “Miss Miraven, this is Father Clifford. Father, this is Trielle Miraven. She wants to make a donation to the church.”

  
Father Clifford turned to me. “I do wish to make a donation, Father. May we speak in your rectory?”

  
“Certainly, my child.”

  
I followed him into the back room of the church and dug out my bag of bottlecaps. “I’d like to donate a hundred caps to your church.”

  
“Oh, child!” He was overwhelmed at the bounty I offered. “May Saint Monica bless you?”

  
While I counted out the caps, he scrutinized me. “My child,” he said, “I sense this is not your only reason for being here. What is troubling you?”

  
Debating for a moment about the wisdom of telling him that his would-be acolyte was the object of lust for the local waitress, I decided it couldn’t hurt to get another point of view on the subject.

  
“It’s Diego,” I said. “Angela Staley is…in love with him, and I think he returns her feelings, but he’s convinced that the Church is the life for him. Now I have nothing against the Church, but he just seems so young to pass up a chance at true happiness.”

  
Father Clifford regarded me with a smile. “Who would think that the wisdom of the ages lurks behind the face of a child?” He sighed heavily. "You have seen right to the heart of a problem that I have been wrestling with for some time. When I first met Diego, I was so impressed with his purity that I convinced myself, and him, that he was bound for a life in the Church. He came to me a few weeks ago and told me of his feelings for Angela Staley, but I brushed them off, told him that he must resist temptation. She never indicated that she returned his regard, so he made plans to take his vows, but now I think I may have made a horrible mistake. If she truly does care for him, and he for her, then this life is too short for these two lovers to spend any more time apart.”

  
“Father,” I said, “I think I know **exactly** how to solve our problem. I can almost guarantee that by tomorrow, Diego and Angela will be in here asking you to perform a wedding. I’m about to give Angela a shot of confidence she can’t possibly go wrong with.”

  
My stomach rumbled again, reminding me that it was time for dinner and to speak to Angela again, but first I had to stop by my hotel room to pick up a little…something. I wasn’t about to give Angela ant pheromones, even though I had some. She didn’t need chemicals to seduce Diego, she just needed more confidence. I dug through my knapsack and pulled out a vial of perfume I had picked up in Canterbury Commons, and added a few drops of scotch and Nuka Cola to make it look believable.

  
Once down in the marketplace, I found Angela sweeping dirt from the floor of the galley area, a thankless task in a waste comprised of scrubby bushes and dust.  
“I talked to Diego,” I said without preamble. “I think you’re going to have to be a little more forward with him to get the response you’re hoping for.” I handed her the carefully prepared vial. “Here are the ant pheromones you asked for. Knock him dead, tiger”

  
Angela’s face shone. “Really? Oh, thank you! I just know I can seduce Diego with this. Then he’ll have to marry me. We’ll be so happy!”

  
“I hope so,” I said, giggling inside. I had no doubt that she **could** seduce him, and that they **would** be happy, but not due to any ‘ant pheromones.’

  
“I know just where to corner him,” she gushed. “I have to go get ready.” She dropped the broom and hurried off. I shook my head and wandered over to the counter to order some dinner. I decided on a Brahmin steak and something called a ‘punga fruit’ that had been brought in by a trading boat. It looked like a yellow baseball with four spikey bits extending from the bottom. Once Gary Staley brought me my dinner, I took it to a table near the bulkhead of the ship, where I could see the whole marketplace. I had just taken a bite of my steak when a familiar set of boot steps came up to the table and two hundred and fifty pounds of pure man dropped into the chair across from me.

  
“Kid.”

  
I was getting really tired of being called everything under the sun **except** my name. “Stop calling me ‘kid,’ asshole!” Harkness drew back a bit at my tone. “My **name** is Elle or Trielle if you can’t manage that. I haven’t been a ‘kid’ since I left a trail of dead security guards behind me on my way out of Vault 101.”

  
“All right…Elle. No need to get your panties in a twist.” He smirked.

  
“I don’t want to talk about my panties,” I said, grumpily. Just the idea of any sentence that included Harkness and my underwear made me blush. Thankfully, he didn’t take it any further.

  
“That was real nice, what you did for Mei this morning,” he said. “Course, the downside of that is that all those bloatflies you woke up decided to make their new nest in my room. Guess who got in a little extra target practice today?”

  
I cringed. “Did they make a **big** mess?”

  
“If you’d call bloatfly guts smeared all over my walls a **big** mess, then I guess so,” he said, sarcastically. “I’ll be staying in the Weatherly until my shit gets cleaned up.”

  
“I’m sorry,” I said, meekly. “I didn’t mean to cause any more trouble…this time.”

  
Waving off my apology, he continued, “I also heard that you talked Mister Lopez out of taking a dive off the observation deck.”

  
“He just needed to know that someone cared,” I shrugged. “I know what it’s like, to be all alone in life. I hope I made him feel a little better.”

  
“ **I** hope he can get Ted Strayer to stop getting high and trying to rewire the lights in the Muddy Rudder. If I get one more call from Belle Bonny that the lights are flashing ‘fuck you’ in Morse code, I may let **her** throw him out the nearest porthole.”

  
I giggled at that, and Harkness gave me a curious look.

  
“You’ve been doing nice things for people on my boat since you got here, the stolen fruit notwithstanding. Don’t think that makes you any less troublesome in my book, but I would like to know how you maintain your…pleasant demeanor after all you’ve gone through?”

  
I thought about it for a moment and smiled. “I’m just a happy person, with a slightly warped sense of humor, and I like helping people.” I turned serious then. “I’ve seen so much death and despair, a lot of it caused by me, and I hate some of the things I’ve had to do to get by. Three Dog keeps calling me the ‘Last, Best Hope of Humanity,’ but that’s bullshit. I’m not a saint, and I’m not the last, best hope of anything. I’m just a girl who’s looking for her dad. I can’t save the whole wasteland, but I can try really hard to make my corner of it a better place. And I can also listen to Angela go on about her feelings for Diego,” I said, grinning and trying to lighten the mood, which had grown unbearably heavy.

  
Harkness rolled his eyes in sympathy. “Better you than me. I’m no good with women, probably why I have an **ex** -wife, rather than a current one.”

  
My heart leapt at his words. I guess I hadn’t really considered that he might be attached to someone while I was flirting with him and thinking about him practically every waking moment. “ **You** have an ex-wife?” I said sarcastically. “Perish the thought, that any woman would want to leave **you** and your cheerful personality. What was the problem, did you eat her?”

  
“All the time,” he drawled with a cocky grin, “but it didn’t seem to help our marriage any.”

  
I flushed bright red as I realized what he meant, and I could hear the blood roaring in my ears. “No…no,” I stammered. “Oh my god! I meant; was she missing any body parts when you parted ways. You know, cannibalism…never mind.” I might start burping butterflies any minute, the way they were fluttering around in my stomach.

  
Harkness roared with laughter. “I knew what you meant. It was just too easy, way too easy. You are far too naïve to survive in the wasteland without a keeper.”

  
I had to get back at him for that last crack. “Are you volunteering, pretty boy?” I smiled sweetly and watched the blood drain out of his face. He stood up quickly, clearly wanting to get away from the giant pile of crazy that was me.

  
“I know enough to know when I’m in over my head. Enjoy your dinner, beautiful,” he said in a voice hot enough to melt the bulkhead behind me, and walked off, laughing that he’d gotten the last word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like Elle needed a girlfriend, so I expanded on the relationship between her and Mei, which never really gets developed in the game. I also hated the way that the game basically has Angela date raping Diego with chemicals, and that was supposed to be the good karma option, so I changed that bit to something a little more plausible and a little less rapey.
> 
> For anyone interested in the six steps of taking a shot, check out Project Appleseed's blog at http://appleseedshoot.blogspot.com/2008/03/six-steps-of-firing-shot.html


	4. An Exercise In Restraint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter and the next one (Stolen Glances) is Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe
> 
> As I was writing this chapter and every time I reread it, Harkness' mean inner voice (the one in bold) always sounded like Dennis Leary to me. Just food for thought.
> 
> Little bit of masturbatory lemony goodness in this chapter.

**An Exercise in Restraint**

  
**Harkness**

  
_Goddamn her_ , I thought as I walked away. I may have gotten the last word again, but she had gotten under my skin without even really trying. She made that remark about me being her keeper, and I almost lost it completely. I’d have pinned her against the nearest bulkhead if I thought she was serious, spectators be damned, but I don’t react well to getting slapped, and she wouldn’t look nearly as pretty with a bruised wrist.

  
I needed to calm down, and fast. Tonight was my night for a bath, and I’d get some awfully strange looks if I showed up in the bath house alone, but pumped up and ready for action. I went out and ran a couple of laps around the flight deck, trying to focus on anything but the purple haired vixen that’d been turning my well-ordered boat upside down ever since she set foot on it. I finally managed to get my body under control, headed to the Weatherly to get my towel and dirty clothes, and there was the source of my irritation **again** , giggling and entering the room next to mine with Mei Wong. Was she following me like a bad bottlecap? I made my way to the bath house, which was several decks down.

  
“Evening, Olga,” I greeted the bath house matron, showing her my water ration card and handing over my clothes to be laundered. She took them and handed me some soap and shampoo.

  
“Evening, Harkness,” she replied. Olga didn’t talk much, and that suited me just fine. The mood I was in, I’d probably just end up offending someone unnecessarily. The bath house had several sections, one for couples, one for families, one for single people, or those who just wanted their privacy. I headed toward the private section, where all the showers were partitioned off in their own roomy stalls, which was unfortunately close to the ‘couples’ section. I just hoped that no one would be taking advantage of that particular section tonight. While I was stripping off my armor and various weapons and putting them in my locker, I felt that damnable presence in my vicinity again. She was with Mei and they were conversing with Olga, bottlecaps and a pile of clothing changing hands. Elle must have been getting tired of wearing the same dirty clothes all the time, not that I blamed her. The Capital Wasteland is a filthy place and she’d been slogging through it for god knows how long.

  
I finished disrobing and wrapped a towel around my waist for the trip back to Olga’s counter, to give her the pants and shirt I had been wearing under my armor. Olga promised to have my stuff done as soon as possible, and I walked back to my shower stall, popping some Rad-X for good measure in case the water purifier was malfunctioning again. Closing the door to my area, I hung the towel off a hook on the wall behind the shower nozzle. I turned on the water and sighed in pure bliss as it hit my skin. _Someday_ , I thought, _Madison will succeed in her quest to purify all the water around here, and then I can have a shower every day, instead of just once a week._ I heard the door creak open, then shut in the stall next to me, but the hot water pounding down on me washed all the cares out of my head. The water started in the next stall, and a blissful sigh almost identical to mine drifted over the partition.

  
Soaping myself thoroughly, I took stock of my feelings toward this whole _thing_ with Elle. _She seems interested_ , said the little voice in my head. _**Yeah, but she also runs around doing random good deeds for strangers, and probably has half the wasteland creatures eating straight from her hand. Maybe she just feels sorry for you, cranky, paranoid asshole that you are**_ , said the other little voice, the one that said things I didn’t like to hear. _She didn’t deck you when you groped her and slapped her ass, and she didn’t flinch when you oh-so-crudely suggested she give you a blow job this morning. She looks at you like she’s interested in seeing more. You look pretty good for your age; still have all your hair and teeth, keeping yourself in shape. **The operative words here being ‘your age,’ asshole. She’s nineteen, you’re thirty five. What would she want with an old law dog like you? More importantly, what would you want with a big pile of trouble like her?**_ _She’s trouble, that’s for sure, but she’s a lot of other things too. Smart, sexy, capable…and a crack shot, god what a turn on._

  
While I was considering strangling both the voices in my head, I heard a feminine giggle and a scuffling sound coming from the ‘couples’ section of the bath house. Great, that was all I needed, to hear some other couple getting busy while I was suffering under the longest sexual drought I’d ever gone through.

  
“Angela, what are you doing? We can’t be in here…together.” That sounded like Diego, which meant Angela was the female I had heard.

  
“I traded my bath night with Trinnie so we could be here at the same time. I have something to show you.” Had Angela finally grown a pair when it came to Diego?

  
“Angela, stop, don’t take your towel off. I…mmmm.” Diego’s protest was cut short and kissing sounds followed. I heard Angela say “What do you think of the ant pheromones Elle gave me? Do they make you want to ravish me?” I should have known Elle had a hand in this. The sounds of flesh meeting flesh were unmistakable, followed by a masculine gasp and a long drawn out bass moan, presumably from Diego.

  
I had been unconsciously leaning on the door of my stall to hear what was going on in the couples section, and I suddenly felt the partition start to fall, taking with it the section between my stall and the next. Before I could react, the walls were on the ground and I was facing a very startled Elle, who had been in the next stall, unbeknownst to me. A very **naked** , startled Elle. I felt my breath hitch and my body heat as I got a very good look at what lay under that bulky armor.

  
_Holy…shit!_ _The carpet’s the same color as the drapes_ , said the voice in my head. _That is so hot_ , followed by, _nipples like pretty pink gumdrops, I wanna suck on them **so** bad! I wonder if they **taste** like gumdrops too_. Creamy skin, several shades lighter now that she’d washed the dirt off, and a few nasty scars that, perversely, made me want her even more. I wanted to lick every inch of her body, paying special attention to those scars, badges of courage on my beautiful troublemaker. Her skin was beaded with water from the shower, and I longed to taste every drop of moisture on her.

  
She was looking me up and down too, and between my thoughts and her eyes, it was playing hell with my breathing, not to mention other parts of me. I felt myself growing rigid under her gaze, and her eyes flew back to my face. She gave me that wide eyed green stare that was so good at making me lose my cool, then her eyes darted back down to my groin. She swallowed, and her gaze came back to my face again. Her lips parted on a soft oh of surprise, and her nipples hardened, sending shockwaves of pleasure straight to the part of me that was throbbing more insistently by the second. She glanced back down and inhaled sharply, and I thought I might die from the pleasure. Her eyes met mine once more, and I had to look away before I did something really stupid, like fuck her brains out right against the wall of the bath house, in front of what seemed like the entire world.

  
“Elle…” I tried to say her name, but it came out as a strangled noise, so I cleared my throat and tried again. “Elle…I…oh god!” I swore. I couldn’t even apologize properly, so I just grabbed my towel from the hook on the wall, turned off the water, and headed toward my locker. I shoved myself into my armor as fast as humanly possible, not even caring that I still had a little soap on my skin and was going commando. When I turned around to leave, she had disappeared, not that I was surprised. ** _Jesus, asshole, way to go,_** said the other voice in my head. ** _Ogling her like a pervert, nice move. See if she wants to speak to you ever again. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t shoot you the next time she sees you._**

  
_But she ogled you too_ , said the first voice, _and she seemed to like what she saw. You know a turned on woman when you see one, and she was definitely turned on._

  
**Or maybe she was just cold.**

  
I told both the voices to shut the hell up and went to get my clothes from Olga. To my dismay, she informed me that they needed at least another hour to dry and told me to go hang out in the sauna until then. I would have just gone back to my room at that point, but a trip there and a trip back with my armor rubbing on my exposed junk just didn’t seem worth it, so I stripped the armor back off, put the towel back around my waist and went into the sauna. Unfortunately, it was a communal area, but fortunately, it was unoccupied at the moment, giving me time to get my breathing and body under control. I sat down where I could see the door through the steam and leaned back against the wall, my breathing erratic, my body craving some kind of release from the tension that was strung through my nerves like red hot wires. Somehow, my tired mind hadn’t connected ‘Elle **in** the bath house’ with ‘Elle **taking** a bath,’ and that lapse of concentration had blown up in my face.

  
_Calm_ , I thought, _you need to calm down. You can’t go traipsing through the city with a hard on, and you certainly can’t go and find Elle and…and what?_ What did I want from her? A quick fuck or something more permanent? _Three days she’s been on your boat, and already your day seems incomplete if you don’t see that shit eating grin of hers, hear her laugh, watch her eyes light up over the stupidest things._

  
_**Permanence**_ , said the darker part of my thoughts, _ **is not for you. You had a wife; you couldn’t keep her, why do you think you would do any better with Elle? She’s just here looking for her father, she’ll be out of your life in a few days and you can go back to your nice, boring routine and stop looking over your shoulder to see if it’s her every time you hear a door open.**_

  
While I was lost in thought, a dangerous proposition in a lawless wasteland, the door creaked open, and I heard Mei Wong’s voice outside. “Olga says your clothes aren’t ready yet, so just stay in here for a little while. I’ll be back in half an hour.” Then, the very object of my thoughts was shoved forcibly into the sauna, her loosely tied towel coming undone and falling to the ground. Mei giggled, slamming the door behind her, leaving me all alone in a steamy room with a naked woman for the second time tonight.

  
Elle squeaked and turned away, blushing furiously and bending down to pick up her fallen towel, giving me a full on view of her naked ass and…other things. My mouth went dry and the hard on I had been trying to talk down came back with a vengeance. She got the towel tied firmly back in place and took a seat on the opposite side of the room from me, resolutely not looking at me.

  
Figuring that if she was going to slit my throat she’d have done it already, I relaxed against the wall and went back to arguing with the voices in my head. I snuck a glance at Elle, noting that she had wedged herself into a corner where she could keep an eye on the door and me at the same time. I closed my eyes and breathed in the steam, trying to ignore the sensations radiating from my groin to the rest of my body. _Just another hour or so_ , I thought, _and you can get your clothes, go back to your room, and do…whatever you need to do to calm down and get some sleep. **Get drunk?** No, hangovers are a bitch when you have to stand early duty. **Shoot someone?** That idea has merit; sure I could find someone that needs shooting on my boat. **Exercise?** I don’t particularly feel up to running around the flight deck again. **Indulge in a little self-pleasuring?** Hmmm…guess that falls under the category of ‘exercise’…breathing exercise at least._

  
While I was arguing with myself yet again, I had the feeling of being watched, but when I opened my eyes and glanced over at Elle, she was staring at the door. I closed my eyes again, and again sensed her eyes on me, eyes that quickly skittered away when I looked in her direction. We played this game for several minutes, then I heard her soft gasp. I opened my eyes to see her staring at me again with the same look she had gotten in the showers. I felt a draft below my waist, and glanced down to find that my erection, teased almost to the breaking point by her gaze and my own lusty thoughts, had poked out of a gap in the towel knotted around me, and Elle was staring at it with a fascination she had previously reserved only for large caliber weapons with massive destructive capabilities.

  
“Elle…,” I started, as I tucked the offending member back inside my towel, “I’m sorr…” The door swung open and my apology was interrupted by the arrival of the Young family, Christie, Henry, and little C.J. I swore under my breath and decided enough was enough for one night. I tore out of the sauna like my ass was on fire, and went up to the front desk.

  
“Olga, I need my clothes…right now.”

  
“But Harkness, they are not dry yet,” Olga said. “Still very wet.”

  
“I don’t care!” I all but shouted. “They’ll dry later.”

  
She tsked at me and went to get my clothes. When she returned, I wasted no time pulling on underwear, shirt, pants, and armor over the top. Olga wasn’t kidding, my clothes were disgustingly soggy, and the walk back to the Weatherly with wet underwear rubbing on my already tortured flesh was an experience that hovered between pain and a rough pleasure that almost sent me over the edge.

  
I stripped out of armor and wet clothes as soon as I locked my door behind me, groaning as my still-engorged flesh sprang free of its confinement. There was no way I was going to get any sleep tonight without releasing some tension, and since I didn’t want to get drunk or run around the ship, and hadn’t found anyone to shoot between the bath house and the hotel, that left one option. I lay down on the wide hotel bed, so much more comfortable than my narrow bunk off of the bridge, and took matters in hand.

  
At first, I tried to imagine every woman I had ever seen naked or fantasized about seeing naked, just so I could get her out of my head, but that scene from the shower just kept replaying itself, over and over again, forcing even my wildest fantasies behind a curtain of purple hair. Her skin was perfection, her body a temple to all that was right in this crazy, fucked up existence. After several attempts to imagine any woman besides Elle, I began to feel as though I would do some permanent damage from all the frustrated contortions my hand was going through, and I realized I couldn’t take it anymore.

  
_**What’s the matter, Harkness?**_ , the little voice taunted. _**You know there’s only one way this is going to play out. The only way to get her off your mind so you can get some sleep is to blast her out of your system…you know what you want, you know she wants it…**_

  
My hand began to get coordinated with my thoughts, and I studied every moment of my memory in such vivid detail it may as well have been a holotape. When I got to the part where she bent over to retrieve her towel, I could almost count the water droplets on that perfect ass. Suddenly it wasn’t enough just to lick the droplets off, I had to make her sweat. I concentrated on those luscious lips between her thighs, and by then I was so wound up that it only took a dozen or so short strokes to get me moaning, breath coming in short gasps as I pleasured myself. I imagined it was Elle on my erection instead of my hand, and the thought of that drove me completely wild. I came so hard my ears buzzed, groaning her name as I went over the edge, and it took several moments before my legs were steady enough to get up and wash myself off. I dropped back onto the bed, still naked, and wrapped the coverlet around myself, savoring the feeling of relaxation that stole over me right before I fell into an exhausted sleep.


	5. Stolen Glances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little tiny slice of masturbatory lemon in this chapter too.

**Stolen Glances**

  
**Trielle**

  
_Oh. My. God._ Those were the only words running through my head after what had to be the most embarrassing, night of my life. _And arousing_ , I admitted mentally, but still **so** embarrassing. I resolved then and there to never take a shower on the same night as Harkness, **ever again** , not even if I had to bathe with dirty bottled water from here on out.

  
The night had started off innocently enough, once Harkness had left me in peace to eat my dinner. I finished my steak and ate the punga fruit, which tasted a lot better than it looked. Mei came to collect me for bath night and we conversed as we walked back to the Weatherly to get my clothes and some chems to trade for water.

  
“So, girl, what’s up with you and that Chief Harkness?” Mei questioned. “He’s quite the looker and he seems to have a real thing for you.”

  
“What makes you think he’s interested in me?” I inquired, striving for an innocuous tone in my voice.

  
“Just something in the way he looks at you, and he is **always** staring at you.”

  
“He’s just keeping an eye on me, Mei. He thinks I’m a troublemaker and he’s looking for an excuse to toss me off the observation deck.”

  
Mei rolled her eyes. “He’s looking for an excuse to do a lot of things to you, and throwing you off the top of the ship isn’t one of them.”

  
We had reached the Weatherly by then, and I ushered her into my room, giggling at her last comment. “You’re crazy, Mei. I bet Harkness has tons of women throwing themselves at him. What would he want with me? I’m nineteen and still a virgin. I don’t think I’m really his type.”

  
“Still a virgin?” Mei goggled at me. “I lost my virginity at thirteen, though it was not at all a pleasant experience, getting gang raped by a dozen slavers.” I opened my mouth to ask for clarification, but Mei held up a hand to stop me. “I don’t like to talk about it, so let’s focus on you. Don’t you people know about sex in that vault of yours?”

  
“Sure, we all got sex ed when we were old enough, and it’s not like I’ve never fooled around, but…it’s complicated. The vault had been a closed system for almost the whole two hundred years since the Great War, and they were still operating under the morals that were prevalent when the bombs dropped. Casual sex was not encouraged, any sex outside of marriage was frowned upon, but it was more than that. The overseer meddled in everyone’s love lives, much more than anyone realized, and he paired people up based on some twisted system he had. It was hard to get attached to someone, knowing you might not end up with them later if the overseer had his way.”

  
“Wow, what a jerk,” Mei said.

  
“Yeah, he was a real peach,” I said. “Now, he did know that a bunch of horny teenagers couldn’t possibly be expected to keep their hands off of each other indefinitely, so there was once a year when all the grownups looked the other way. On May 1st, every year, the vault threw a huge party for the younger set, and all of us were given extraordinary leeway with our sexual constraints, provided a period of penance was observed by pulling extra maintenance and doing other things for the community over the following month. It’s quite complicated actually, but basically, we all followed a set of social conventions that allowed everyone to sort of hang loose for one night a year with no social consequences or attachments, or at least that’s how it was supposed to work, but I guess you can’t govern the workings of the human heart.

  
“Anyway, one night a year, the lights went out, figuratively and literally, and nature was allowed to take its course, until the next day, when all our carriages turned back into pumpkins, and we turned back into good little vault mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed on shit. Some people referred to it as a Beltane celebration or Cinderella’s Ball. I just called it an exercise in frustration.”

  
“Only once a year?”

  
“Well, we wouldn’t want to go too crazy, now would we?” I said, sarcastically, hearing the overseer’s voice in my head, speaking the words along with me. “But it was the same for me, year after year. The other kids would pair up and go off to some unused corner of the vault to fuck, and I was always left alone. Nobody wanted to be with that purple-headed girl from outside. Because I was, you know, from the outside, though I didn’t know it at the time. I think that’s part of the reason the overseer didn’t like me: I didn’t fit into his little personal breeding program. I was tainted, different. I didn’t understand why none of the boys wanted to be with me. I saw the way they looked at me, the way everyone looks at me, but no one could seem to get past the damned purple hair and scars, or whatever was holding them back.”

  
“Scars?” Mei asked.

  
I lifted my shirt to show her the network of lines and puckered stab wounds crisscrossing my torso and shoulders. “When I was twelve, one of the older guys in the vault developed a real problem with Psycho. Nobody knows where he was getting it, certainly not from Dad, but there were whole areas of the vault that hadn’t been used in decades, so maybe he found a stash left over from before the war. Anyways, he went nuts one day; must have been a really bad batch, and he cornered a bunch of us kids in one of the tunnels. We’d been playing Hunt the Mutant in the unused tunnels, so we were too far away for the grownups to get there in time.” I winced at the remembered pain. “He came out of nowhere, brandishing the biggest knife I’ve ever seen and screeching something about Commies. He was headed right for Amata and she froze, so I grabbed the nearest thing that looked like a weapon, which happened to be a length of pipe that had broken off the wall, and jumped in front of her. I hit him with it, but it was too heavy for me and he just shrugged off the blows and kept slicing me and trying to get to Amata.” I shivered, remembering the terror.

  
“I don’t know why he was so fixated on her, but she was my friend and I was too scared to run away. He stabbed me in the shoulder and my ears started buzzing; everything went black. Next thing I knew, Amata was shaking me and begging me to stop, and someone else was screaming for Dad. All the kids were gaping at me, and Paul Hannon was puking in the corner. I heard a squelching sound, and realized that I was still mechanically swinging the pipe. I’d turned the junkie’s head into an unrecognizable pulp and was covered in blood, his and mine. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you thinking I was some kind of supernatural badass at twelve, or anything, it’s just that there was so much blood.” I shuddered. “As near as anyone could piece together after the fact, he must have slipped in my blood and fallen on the jagged end of the pipe. The other kids claim I jammed it into his neck, but I honestly don’t remember that. All I can remember is him on top of me, and me fighting to get away. That’s why I couldn’t stop swinging the pipe; he had a death grip on my leg, literally. He wouldn’t…let…go because he was already dead.”

  
“Wow!” Mei breathed. “I guess in a truly horrible way you **can** identify with me, except that I was too scared to fight the slavers that raped me. What happened then?”

  
“As soon as I managed to put the pipe down, I collapsed and wound up in the infirmary for weeks from blood loss and infection. We had dermal regeneration technology, but the junkie had dipped his knife in some kind of industrial solvent, and the skin grafts to cover the scars wouldn’t take. Most of the other kids couldn’t even look at me for months, and when they did, they were so disgusted by my scars, and the fact that I’d beaten a guy to death with a pipe, that they didn’t want anything to do with me. Nobody else in the vault had any scars, and they treated me like I might be contagious. Because I wasn’t perfect anymore.”

  
“Jerks,” Mei muttered. “I’ve seen worse scars than those little things. So no one would touch you, not even on the night when everyone looked the other way? That must have been disappointing. Your one chance a year, and you couldn’t get laid if you tried.”

  
“And I did try everything to get rid of my virginity.” I sighed. “When I was fifteen I managed to be alone in the supply closet with Freddy Gomez, one of the boys who didn’t tease me much. I was on cloud nine; finally I was alone with a boy who was interested in doing something, **anything** with me that didn’t include leering at my ass or calling me names, and who didn’t seem to notice the scars.”

  
“So…what happened?”

  
“We managed a few kisses and a little clumsy groping before the door opened and the overseer dragged us out by our ears. He took me to his office for a talking to, and he sat too close to me and kept patting me on the knee. He looked at me with that look that everyone gets, but on him it was really creepy…and he kept smiling, but it wasn’t a nice smile, and it made me uncomfortable. It was like he wanted me for himself, even though he didn’t like me and thought I was a bad influence on his daughter Amata, who was my best friend.”

  
“Gross,” Mei said.

  
“I wasn’t turned off by the idea of someone older wanting me,” I said. “Just him. By that point, I had developed quite a crush on my dad’s friend and assistant, Jonas. I was convinced he was the perfect guy for me…smart, kind, and he really understood me. I don’t think I was necessarily attracted to him physically, but we were kindred spirits, and I was too young to know the difference.”

  
“I take it that didn’t go well either?” Mei asked.

  
“You got that right. I cornered him in the reactor room one day, just sat down on his lap; pretended like it was all innocent at first, you understand, then I got to squirming around a bit, hoping to provoke a reaction. I poured out my feelings to him, and tried to kiss him. He was very polite about it, but he rejected me. He stammered something about how young I was and that Dad would kill him, and then ran off to a restricted part of the vault where I couldn’t follow. He managed to avoid me long enough that I gave up, temporarily.”

  
“Temporarily?”

  
“I had planned to try my luck with him again when I got a little older, but circumstances intervened.” I swallowed hard. “He was killed trying to help Dad get out of the vault, yet another of the overseer’s abuses of power. I still miss him, even though I think I wasn’t really in love with him, just in love with the idea of being in love.”

  
“That’s rough.” Mei said. “So an interrupted grope session with another kid, and a crush on an older friend, that’s your sexual experience?”

  
“Not quite,” I said. “The year I turned eighteen, I had been left alone at the annual party again and I was getting discouraged. Everyone else was doing the deed, getting some relief from their hormones, and I was reduced to sneaking around the vault trying to see someone in the act, so I could at least live vicariously off another’s pleasure. So when Wally Mack came to me a few days later and asked if I wanted to ‘do it’ with him in one of the tunnels, I was thrilled. He told me to go get naked and he’d be with me in a minute, which should have been my first clue that something wasn’t right, but I was so sexually frustrated by that point that I completely ignored the little voice in my head that said this was a bad idea.”

  
“Let me guess…?” Mei said.

  
“Yep,” I grimaced at the memory. “There I am in the tunnel, buck naked and waiting for Wally with bated breath, when the entire teenage population of Vault 101 bursts in on me with cameras, laughing and pointing. I tried to cover myself up, but Wally had snuck in and stolen my clothes. **All** of them. I ran further into the tunnels and didn’t come out until I was sure the entire vault was asleep. Next day, he was playing tonsil hockey with Christine Kendall by the water fountain, so I pretended like nothing happened, but that didn’t work. Those damned pictures kept showing up, sometimes in the worst imaginable condition, with you know, _fluids_ , splattered on them, and the other kids teased me about it for months. I’d finally had enough and tracked down as many copies as I could. I did quite a bit of sabotage that summer, since that was my only revenge on my classmates. I got really good at being sneaky, picking locks and getting into databases people wanted to keep me out of. No one could prove it was me, but they never messed with me again. I never did have the courage to be alone with a boy again after that, just in case everyone forgot what happened to their rooms and possessions and tried to make me the butt of another joke.

  
“So that’s why I’m still a virgin,” I finished.

  
“Elle,” Mei sighed. “My first time wasn’t an experience anyone should ever have to go through, nor my second or third, but for the record, I did finally learn to enjoy sex; I just had to be with the right person under the right circumstances to appreciate it.”

  
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  
“Well, let’s just say there’s a big difference between what happened to my virginity and what can happen between two properly aroused people. I was fortunate enough to find someone who could do that for me, and well, it was quite a shock for me to realize I could enjoy myself with another human being.” She sighed dreamily. “He wasn’t a nice man, but he was nice to me, and I hope I can find another person like that someday. When Tenpenny ordered him killed for failing a job, that’s when I knew I had to get away. So I ran, and ended up here, where I was hoping to start a new life, with maybe a new man eventually, someone who treats me like I’m worth more than just a quick fuck. Harkness is a prime specimen of that type of man, the type that can really make a girl change her perspective, and I have no doubt what’s running through his mind when he looks at you. That said, girl you are in **so** much trouble if Harkness gets his hands on you,” Mei laughed. “Now, let’s go before all the hot water’s gone.”

  
We went down to the bath house and Mei introduced me to the matron, Olga, a pretty, older woman of Russian descent. Olga agreed to launder my clothing for a modest fee, and was more than willing to trade a bath ration for a generous supply of chems. I noticed Mei turn and giggle at something, but was too busy haggling for the fair price of a bath to see what she was laughing at. We went to a bank of lockers and stripped off our clothes, and in my case weapons and armor too, and wrapped ourselves in towels for the short walk back to the counter to hand over what we’d been wearing.

  
Mei directed me to a shower stall, which was actually quite roomy, and took one next to me. I could tell from the sounds of water in the stall on the other side of me that it was occupied, by whom I had no idea. I turned on the water and sighed with happiness at my first real shower since leaving the vault. It was so nice to be clean again, really clean, and I would have clean clothes to wear when I was done. I washed my hair and body quickly, not knowing how long I was allowed to shower for, and was just rinsing off when I heard noises from another part of the bath house.

  
It was Angela, who had clearly cornered Diego in the shower, armed with the ‘ant pheromones’ I had given her and ready to make her move. I leaned against the stall door to listen, and heard Diego all but melt for Angela’s charms. All Angela had needed was confidence in herself, and I resolved to tell her tomorrow that Diego hadn’t been under the influence of any chems when he responded to her. Various moans and sounds of slapping flesh drifted through the bath house, and I felt tingly all over just listening.

  
All of a sudden, the partition I was leaning on gave an alarming squeal of overstressed metal and came crashing down in an instant, taking the section between the stalls with it, and I was confronted with Harkness, in all his naked glory. I had seen pictures of naked men, and even a few in the flesh to be sure, but this was entirely something else, and I couldn’t have looked away if someone had started the next Great War right behind me.

  
His piercing gray eyes swept over me, widening when they got to the juncture of my legs and turning to liquid silver when he realized that **all** my hair was the same color. He was magnificent, all hard muscle, dripping with water like some young sea god; chest lightly dusted with curling brown hair which arrowed down over his stomach to his groin, where it framed…oh, wow! I heard him catch his breath and his manhood swelled under my gaze. My eyes zoomed up to his face and I stared at him, wide eyed, while he stared at me with equal intensity. _Oh my god_ , I thought, _he’s naked! **You’re** naked! He’s looking at you and he’s not laughing **or** pointing. Well, one part of him is pointing at you._ My glance shot back down to the part of him that was doing the pointing and it got even bigger. I swallowed hard and felt my nipples harden from the force of his regard.

  
“Oh,” I breathed, meeting his eyes again. _It’s so big, did **I** do that? My god, it’s still growing, and is it my imagination, or does that thing have a pulse?_ I ached to feel it against me so I could check for signs of life. My thoughts were rocketing around in my head like drunken bloatflies, and it was getting hard to concentrate. _He looks like he’d be able to pick me up with one hand, or perhaps a certain other appendage._ I couldn’t help but look at it once more, and when it throbbed and swelled again, I inhaled sharply. I heard a sound like a smothered groan and my eyes met his for one last heated look that almost burned me to ashes right on the spot. We locked eyes for a long moment, then Harkness turned away, growling something that sounded like my name. He tried again, then swore, grabbed his towel, and headed toward his locker like the hounds of hell were on his ass. I snuck a peek at his retreating form, admiring the lines of his back and legs, to say nothing of his tight, muscled backside that made me yearn to test its elasticity and return the favor he had done me twice.

  
When he opened his locker and started rummaging in it for his armor, I ducked into an unused shower stall that was still intact, heart pounding in my chest. I put my hands over my mouth to stifle my erratic breathing and the sudden, hysterical laughter that bubbled out of me like water out of a fountain. I leaned against the wall and shook with repressed laughter until tears ran down my face. _He saw you naked_ , the voice in my head screamed at the top of its imaginary lungs. _He saw you naked and it turned him on! **Finally** , someone who can get past the hair color and the scars. And he has a few scars too, so he’s not perfect either. Well, he **is** perfect_ , mental sigh, _but maybe he gets what you went through._ Then the rogue thought drifted into my head: _I’d like to lick the water off of him, make him shiver, make him moan._ I clapped my hands over my burning cheeks, embarrassed but aroused by my thoughts, and then I heard a knock at my stall door.

  
“Elle.” It was Mei, and she was laughing. “He’s gone. You can come out now. I brought your towel.”

  
“Thank god,” I muttered. I opened the door a crack and she handed my towel through, which I tied loosely around me.

  
“See what I mean?” Mei laughed. “Harkness couldn’t take his eyes off you, and he looked like he wouldn’t care if other people were watching when he slammed you against the wall and had his wicked way with you.” She raised one eyebrow. “ **He** certainly didn’t seem turned off by your scars, and you liked what you saw, right? I mean, you could cut glass with your nipples right now, even through the towel.”

  
“Yeah, yeah, he’s freaking gorgeous,” I said. “Now can we get out of here before I dissolve into a tiny, embarrassed puddle of goo on the floor?”

  
Mei steered me toward another door. “Olga says your clothes aren’t ready yet, so just stay in here for a little while. I’ll be back in half an hour.” She opened the door to reveal steamy semi-darkness swirling around a blurry human figure against the far wall, shoved me in, and slammed the door. I heard her giggle from the other side of the door and felt my towel come undone and fall to the floor. Then I realized that the figure against the other wall was the man who not five minutes ago had seen me stark naked, and here I was, naked in front of him again, and we were **alone**. Having used up an entire year’s worth of courage in our last staring contest, I made a squeaking noise and turned around to pick up my towel, forgetting that he was just as interested in seeing my backside naked as he was in seeing the front. I felt his eyes on my ass as I bent over, burning me, burning **into** me.

  
I quickly covered up and sat down along the opposite wall, careful not to expose anything or look in his direction as I stuffed myself into a corner of the room, keeping one eye on the door and the other on him. I glanced over, and seeing that his eyes were closed, felt free to look a little longer. Harkness sat with his back to the wall, facing the door, as I would expect any good soldier to do. He wore nothing but the towel around his waist, and I’ll admit, I ogled his muscles shamelessly. He rested with his legs slightly spread, a slight grimace on his face as if he was in pain. I pulled my eyes away with some difficulty, and felt his scrutiny on me as soon as I turned away. We traded glances for a minute or two, our eyes never meeting, and then I looked over again and saw the tip of his manhood, poking out of an opening in the towel. I gasped and stared at it with eyes wide and mouth hanging open like an idiot. _Damn_ , my mind babbled, _that is one impressive piece of hardware. Is it bigger now? It **is** bigger. Oh…wow!_

  
Harkness had opened his eyes at my gasp and looked down to find himself _exposed_. He actually looked embarrassed and tried to stammer an apology as he tucked it away, but was interrupted by the door to the sauna opening. It was the Young family, mother, father, and daughter, and Harkness took off like a shot as soon as they cleared the door, not even stopping to say hello to the new arrivals. I exchanged pleasantries with them, and then sat in an uncomfortable ball in the corner, feeling like an intruder on their family time. I wanted to leave, but Mei had said to wait for her.

  
When half an hour had come and gone, I figured she wasn’t coming back and left the sauna to get my clothes. They were still damp, but I really didn’t feel like hanging around the bath house any longer, so I put them on and headed back up to the hotel. I hadn’t taken more than a few steps out the bath house door when Mei caught up to me, fully clothed with a smirk on her face and a bar of soap in her hand. She handed it to me, and I saw that it had my and Harkness’ initials carved on it, surrounded by a heart.

  
“Here,” she laughed. “For next time, since you obviously chickened out this time, judging by the way Harkness tore out of the bath house in soaking wet clothes about thirty minutes ago. Hey, next time you can offer to wash his back…and other things.”

  
“Very funny, Mei,” I growled. “You set me up. You knew he was in the sauna, didn’t you?”

  
“Of course,” Mei said. “I also knew no one else was in there, and I was hoping you two would benefit from a little… **alone** time after getting a good eyeful in the shower.”

  
“Give it a rest,” I sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast.”

  
We split off at the next juncture; she headed to her room and I headed to the hotel. When I got back to my room, a sound from the next room made me pause with my hand on the lock panel. Several masculine moans issued from the other room, interspersed with harsh breathing, followed by a sharp gasp and a long, drawn out groan of pleasure that sounded like my name, but was probably just my heated imagination.

  
_Great_ , I thought, _why should it be any different **outside** the vault? Everybody’s still getting laid but me._ I was tempted to slam my door shut in frustration, but didn’t want whoever was in the next room to think I had been spying on them. I stripped off my armor and wet clothes and flopped down on the bed in my room, which was the most comfortable thing I had ever lain on, but the tension in my body wouldn’t let me rest. **_Fuck!_** I got up and noticed the bottle of vodka on the nightstand, with two shot glasses set out right in front of it. _Hell, why not?_ I poured a shot in each glass and downed both of them, one right after the other. The vodka burned down my throat and made me cough, but it still didn’t help me feel any more relaxed. I could go take a dip in the Potomac River, which was sure to be icy this time of night, or I could take care of matters myself. I knew which I preferred to do; the dirty, irradiated river didn’t seem at all attractive when I’d just gotten really clean for the first time in weeks.

  
I lay back down on the bed and tried to relax, but I kept picturing Harkness, in the shower, in the sauna…in my bed. My cheeks flushed as I recalled his fine male body, solid muscles and strong hands that I ached to have touching me. My hand stole between my legs to the little bud of sensation concealed there, and I circled it with my finger, whimpering at the delightful sensation and pretending it **was** his hands on me. Images of him flashed through my mind as I caressed my swollen flesh, fingers rubbing faster, free hand clinging to the bed cover as waves of pleasure built. Harkness was laughing as he teased me, smirking after slapping my ass, looking me up and down with heat in his eyes, and I was…drowning in a tidal wave of desire. I imagined that it was him I had heard in the room next door, groaning my name, and that made the flames burn even hotter. I squeezed my eyes shut in concentration, tighter with each imagined thrust, until I began to see stars. I had to remind myself not to hold my breath. I went over the edge moaning his name, hips jerking up off the bed in the strongest orgasm I had ever experienced in my life. My skin tingled all over and I could hear myself gasping for breath through the ringing in my ears. My last coherent thought was to turn off the bedside light before I fell asleep.


	6. Dream a Little Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs for this chapter are The Cars - Moving In Stereo for Harkness, and Dev - Dancing in the Dark for Elle. This chapter is a straight up lemon.

**Dream a Little Dream**

  
**Harkness**

  
I roused from sleep briefly when I heard a moan through the wall. It sounded like my name, but was more likely just my sleep-addled mind making up fantasies. Dropping back into sleep, I imagined that it was Elle moaning my name…

  
…and then I was back in the sauna, trying to catch my breath after being ogled by Elle and resisting the temptation to snatch her up and take her back to my room to fulfill all those heated promises in her eyes.

  
As if my thoughts had summoned her, the door to the sauna opened and there she was, only this time she didn’t look surprised to see me. She untied her towel as she strutted toward me, giving me another look at her magnificent breasts, not to mention the rest of her.

  
“You like what you see, big boy?” she asked in a throaty voice, looking down at where I was saluting her. “Well, it’s all yours. Now take that towel off.” Suddenly, she was straddling me where I sat on the bench, rubbing my face in her cleavage and grinding against my erection. She put her hands on either side of my head and caught my lips in a wild, feverish kiss, tongues tangling and hot breath mingling. I threaded my fingers through her hair to hold her exactly where I wanted her while I plundered her sweet mouth. She trailed her fingers down my chest and reached between us to untie my towel. She yanked the confining cloth free and ran her fingers teasingly up and down my shaft before taking it in a grip that would have been painful if it hadn’t felt so good. She stroked my throbbing manhood in a rhythm that had me seeing stars, while sucking on my tongue in a provocative manner. I could hear my own harsh breathing inside her mouth and I was so close I could taste it, but there was something else I wanted to taste first.

  
I broke the kiss and moved my mouth a little lower, to the pretty pink nipples that had been teasing me since the first time I saw her naked. I swirled my tongue around one, sucking and licking, plying the other with my fingers. _They **do** taste like gumdrops_ , I thought crazily. Elle made a mewling sound of pleasure and twisted her fingers into my hair, urging me closer. I kissed her again, thumbs running over both nipples at once, and she responded by biting my lower lip and rubbing herself against my arousal. I arched my hips, nearly unseating her, and moaned into her mouth. _I can’t take much more of this._

  
“Elle!” I gasped against her lips, “I need to be inside you. **Now!** ”

  
She smiled and guided my swollen, aching shaft to her moist entrance with one hand. As soon as I felt the tip go in, I grabbed her ass with both hands and thrust my length into her up to the base with a groan they could probably hear up on the bridge. She gasped and her inner muscles tightened around me, wringing another groan from my lips. I plunged into her, wildly, desperately, feeling her claw at my back as she moaned, head thrown back in ecstasy; the red hot trails her nails were leaving on my skin only served to fan the flames higher. _I can’t believe she’s letting me do this!_ We were both gasping for breath and I could tell my orgasm was only seconds away, but I didn’t want to be the only one scaling the heights of pleasure. I reached between us and stroked the bud between her legs, hearing her whimper when I applied a little pressure. It only took a moment before she stiffened, muscles tightening around me, and she was gone, moaning my name as she went over the brink. A couple more hard thrusts and I joined her…

  
…and woke up just in time to see myself erupt like a volcano as my orgasm came on me hard. I moaned and gripped the sheets with both fists, hips still thrusting convulsively as I emptied myself all over the bed. My body continued to quiver through several aftershocks until I was utterly exhausted and thoroughly sated, unable to keep my eyes open any longer as I reentered the realm of sleep.

 

************

 

**Trielle**

  
I woke from an exhausted sleep to the sound of my door opening. A shadowy male figure was silhouetted against the light from the hallway, and I reached for the pistol I kept under my pillow, opening my mouth to scream. The door closed and the room was plunged into darkness again, the intruder moving faster than I thought was possible over to the side of the bed to swoop down on top of me, one hand covering my mouth and the other trapping my wrists above my head, hard male weight keeping me pinned to the bed.

  
“Don’t scream, Elle, it’s just me,” Harkness whispered in my ear, hot breath making me shiver. “I heard you moaning my name. We both need this, don’t you think?” Without giving me a chance to answer, he replaced his hand with his mouth, thrusting his tongue aggressively against mine. In the back of my mind I registered that he was naked, just as I was, and I could feel his hot length rubbing along my thigh. My head was spinning as he kissed me with an expertise I was unfamiliar with. He kissed his way up the curve of my jaw, sucking on the sensitive skin of my throat and making me squirm with desire.

  
“I’ve wanted to do this since you set foot on my boat,” he groaned in my ear, grinding himself against me. “You’ve been teasing me and teasing me, and I can’t take any more.” He trailed his mouth down my neck to my breasts, licking each of my nipples in turn before taking one in his mouth, sucking hard on it, while tweaking the other between his fingers. I whimpered and he chuckled darkly against my skin when I grabbed his head. He tortured my sensitive flesh a moment more, then licked a path down lower, past my navel, to my throbbing core. I panicked and pulled his hair, trying to draw him away from my groin, but he only laughed.

  
“Don’t worry, Elle,” he said hotly. “You’ll enjoy this. I promise.” He spread me with his fingers and I felt his tongue against my moist bud, swirling and teasing, teeth nipping at my aching flesh. I gave a muffled scream in the back of my throat at the sensations he was causing, and he increased his ministrations, obviously pleased by my reaction. I writhed under his mouth, moaning and gasping and pleading with him to stop.

  
“It’s too much!” I sobbed.

  
“Shhh,” he murmured, reaching up to seize my twisting hips in his warm, strong hands, stilling my movements. “Relax! You don’t **really** want me to stop, do you?”

  
“Y…yes, **no!** ” I moaned.

  
“That’s what I thought,” he said, and continued to stimulate me, drawing me ever closer to the edge of ecstasy. When he had me so near that I could feel myself slipping away, he slid up my body and plunged into me in one quick motion, eyes rolling back in his head as he groaned. I bit his shoulder to keep from shrieking my pleasure for the whole ship to hear.

  
“You’re so **tight!** ” he moaned, shuddering against me as he stroked in and out. “So tight and wet; ready for me. God, you’re so hot!” He angled his hips so he rubbed against the center of my desire and I gasped, seeing sparks behind my eyes. He continued to thrust, thumbing my nipples as he did, and the combination of sensations was enough to send me over the threshold, moaning his name as my hips bucked against him. He drove into me with quicker strokes, breath coming in short gasps as he worked toward his own gratification. He gave one final thrust and stiffened, head thrown back and roaring his pleasure as he came. He collapsed on top of me, struggling to slow his breathing, and I could feel his heart racing. We lay like that for a moment, then he rolled off of me and propped himself up on one elbow.

  
“That was wonderful,” he sighed. “Don’t you feel better now?”

  
I murmured something incomprehensible, still too sated to muster anything resembling human speech.

  
“You’re gonna hate me for this,” he said, and pinched me hard on the arm. “Wake up!”

  
…And suddenly I was alone in the bed, body still throbbing from the dream. I swore violently and succumbed to the lure of Morpheus once again.


	7. The Pitter-Patter of Tiny Feet in Huge Combat Boots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is The Wanted - Chasing the Sun.

**The Pitter-Patter of Tiny Feet in Huge Combat Boots**

  
**Harkness**

  
I was in a really weird mood the next day, exhausted from too little sleep, but feeling good after the multiple releases I’d had, with a healthy dose of self-consciousness thrown in. I just knew that Elle would take one look at my face and know that I’d been fantasizing about her. Not to mention all the other gossips on this boat who were even now undoubtedly passing around the tale of last night’s incident in the shower. One of the downsides to living in Rivet City was that everyone knew everyone else’s business almost as soon as it happened.

  
I headed down to the marketplace to wait for the galley to open so I could get some breakfast, since there was nothing to do in my hotel room except stare at the ceiling, and I’d never been one to just sit back and relax when there was work to be done. I hadn’t expected to find anyone else up at this ungodly hour, but there **she** was, sitting at one of the tables cleaning her sidearm, a wicked looking scoped .44 magnum, and the dark circles under her eyes suggested that her night had been as rough as mine had, though she had a glow about her that belied those dark circles.

  
“Morning, Elle.” I couldn’t quite look her in the eye after all that had happened the previous night. She grunted something that sounded like a greeting, and I noticed that she was having trouble meeting my eyes as well. Nice to know I wasn’t the only one feeling vulnerable about the whole thing.

  
I walked around the marketplace several times, checking stalls and making sure that everything was as it should be. I was examining a particularly scurrilous bit of graffiti on the wall, done by our own Ted Strayer in nauseating color and loving detail, and considering making him scrub it off with his tongue, when I heard the telltale buzzing whine of several bloatflies in the confines of the marketplace.

  
“Damn!” I swore and drew my submachine gun, backing away from the wall quickly and scanning the large room for a target. As I backed into the center of the room, I smacked right into something warm and female. I turned with a muffled curse and found that Elle had her .44 magnum out and was also perusing the area with a businesslike air. She blushed when our backsides connected, but quickly turned back to the threat at hand.

  
“Back to back,” I said, and felt her nod against my shoulders. “Try not to put any more holes in my walls,” I teased, because I knew very well she could handle herself around bloatflies. She elbowed me lightly in the ribs, and then the enemy was in sight and we both raised our weapons to meet them. I lost count of how many bloatflies I shot; that must have been one hell of a nest she stirred up yesterday. I could hear the roar of her hand cannon as we moved and circled as one, eliminating all the threats. I dimly registered several of my security guards chasing more of the insects out into the corridors of the city, but I was too caught up in the battle to acknowledge them. Fierce joy sang through me at the appreciation of having someone to guard my back as I guarded hers, and my world had shrunk to include only her and me. There were three bloatflies left by then, and we each took out one, with the third being a toss-up as to who got it first.

  
When all the bloatflies had been taken care of, I holstered my gun, turning just in time to collide with her as she did the same, and had to catch her to keep her from falling. We were so close together, bodies touching at hips and chest, my arms around her shoulders, hers around my waist. I could feel the heat pouring off her body as we both struggled to shrug off the adrenaline that had hit us hard, and I realized that she wasn’t wearing any armor this morning, just a ragged pair of pants and a tight shirt that emphasized parts of her I had trouble keeping my eyes off. Thanks to last night’s episode in the shower, I knew exactly what lay under a few scant bits of cloth, all that separated me from her velvety skin.

  
“Nice shooting,” I said, needing to do something to break the tension that shimmered between us like heat waves on hot pavement. “I’m glad to see you can handle a big gun like that. Some grown men I know have cried like babies after firing one of those.”

  
“Thanks,” she replied, breathlessly. “You too. I’ve never seen trigger control like yours on a submachine gun. I’m jealous.”

  
We had run out of things to make small talk about, and I could feel her breath against my neck, our faces only inches apart. I put my hand up to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes and was caught in the grip of something inexplicable as soon as I touched her face.

  
“Elle, I…” Why was I so unsure around her? She stared up at me with those large eyes, lips slightly parted, and I just couldn’t help myself. I bent my head to hers, intent on covering her mouth with mine, and god help me, she didn’t stop me. But just as our lips touched, I heard many sets of footsteps and surprised whispers around me as the inhabitants of Rivet City entered the marketplace to start their day. I thrust Elle away from me like I’d been burned, and I swear I saw a hurt look flash through her eyes for a moment, then as she registered the growing, awestruck crowd, it was gone as if it had never existed. In the next moment, we were enveloped in a miniature whirlwind that turned out to be Angela Staley. She hugged Elle, hugged me, then hugged Elle again.

  
“You’ll never guess what happened last night,” she burbled, unaware that both Elle and I knew exactly what had gone on last night in the showers. She led us both to her father’s restaurant and danced with joy as she took her place behind the counter, turning to Elle with a blissful look on her face. “Thanks to those ant pheromones you gave me, Diego was putty in my hands. We’re getting married!” she squealed.

  
“About those ant pheromones,” I said sternly to Elle. “What were you thinking, giving dangerous drugs to minors? Is this all part of your nefarious plan to make me think you’re more trouble than you’re worth and throw you off my boat once and for all, because you **really** don’t need to add to the slate on that one?” I expected Elle to look at least a little ashamed, but she smiled a mysterious smile instead.

  
“Do you have any of the pheromones left?” she asked Angela, who produced a small spray bottle and dropped it in Elle’s outstretched palm.

  
“I didn’t use the whole bottle because I didn’t want to melt poor Diego’s brain,” Angela explained. “There’s enough left for you, Elle, if you want to use them on a certain…um…person.” She lowered her voice as if imparting a secret, and her eyes quickly flicked to me, and then away as she said it, like I didn’t know she was referring to me.

  
“Sure, I’ll bite.” Elle laughed and spritzed some on her neck, tilting her head back to expose her soft throat. “I’ll even spray some on him, just to make sure I’ve done a thorough job.” Before I could duck, she gave me a wicked look and sprayed the contents of the bottle square in my face. I glared at her through sneezes and waved my hand in front of my face to clear the air.

  
Elle waved her fingers like a magician casting a spell. “Harkness is now under my complete control,” she intoned, smothering a laugh.

  
I gave her a look that could have curdled Brahmin milk. “Dousing the security chief with chemicals is a good way to get that trip out the porthole that I mentioned.” I took a whiff of the stuff and gagged. “Phew, what is this? Smells like cheap perfume mixed with scotch and Nuka Cola.” Although privately, I wasn’t sure it **wasn’t** having the intended effect. I was almost ready to sit up and beg like a trained yao guai, and certain parts of me were already trying to do the same. _Think about something **un** -sexy_, my inner voice advised. _Like disarming frag mines_ …thoughts of Elle eyeing your manhood like it was explosive ordinance… _scratch that. Cleaning up bloatfly guts from the marketplace…there, that’ll do the trick._

  
“Exactly,” Elle said triumphantly, spreading her hands to illustrate her point. She turned to Angela, who had been staring, openmouthed, through our exchange. “You didn’t need ant pheromones to help you with Diego, you just needed a shot of confidence. I talked to Father Clifford at the church, and he said that he’d made a mistake, telling Diego to stay away from you. So I just let you **think** you were getting ant pheromones to make you irresistible, and nature took its course.” She clapped Angela on the shoulder. “Last night was all you.”

  
“So…when Diego and I…he was responding to me, not the chemical?” Angela had a look of wonder on her face.

  
“Yep,” Elle said. “Guess he thinks you’re pretty sexy just the way you are.”

  
Angela hyperventilated for a long moment, too overwhelmed to do more than turn an interesting shade of blue from lack of oxygen. “Oh…oh…wow…,” she stammered as her face screwed up in worry. “Sss…so, I, uh…,” she stuttered, smiling as realization crossed her face. “That’s **awesome!** ” she finally squealed, just when I thought I might have to thump her to get her breathing again. “Sooo,” she said, moving on to other topics with a speed that made my head spin, “I heard about you two in the bath house last night, and then I come in this morning to find you _smooching_ in the marketplace. Will we be planning another wedding soon?” She wiggled her eyebrows at me, and that was simply **it**. I had to get out of there before another word came out of her mouth. Choking down a can of Cram for breakfast in my office was worth the peace and quiet I would get, away from the knowing stares and the gossip that kept the city fueled as surely as the nuclear reactor did.

  
“Explaining my motives to a sixteen year old isn’t on my to-do list this morning,” I drawled as if I hadn’t a care in the world, and then made my escape. But the sanctuary of my office seemed impossibly far away when Father Clifford stopped me before I had gotten more than fifty feet out of the marketplace.

  
“Saint Monica’s blessings be upon you this fine morning, my son,” he greeted me. “Have you heard the glad news of the nuptials I’ll be performing soon?” My heart was in my mouth for a moment, thinking he referred to Elle and me, then I remembered Angela and Diego.

  
“Get to the point, Father,” I said gruffly, emotional turmoil leading me to be a bit sharper with him than I had intended. “I’ve got work to do.”

  
“I just wanted to invite you to the wedding of Angela and Diego on Friday. I know you are not a…spiritual man,” he continued, putting it nicely that I stayed as far away from the church as I could get, “but surely the thought of two lives becoming one could entice you to enter God’s domain for one day?”

  
“Maybe,” I said quickly, just to shut him up. “Is it true that you gave Elle your blessing to meddle in Diego’s life with the intent of getting him together with Angela?”

  
Father Clifford smiled angelically. “Elle, such a sweet girl with a large heart,” he rhapsodized. “She made a large donation to the church, a **large** donation, and she really seems to care about the people of Rivet City.”

  
“Yes, she’s wonderful,” I said patiently, “but…about Angela and Diego?”

  
“Oh, yes,” he recalled himself. “She saw that there was a problem between them, a problem created in part by me, and she appears to have fixed it. I did tell her that I wished I had not encouraged Diego to stay away from the Staley girl. I think they belong together, and now they will be.”

  
“Thank you for clearing that up, Father,” I said, turning to leave.

  
“My son,” he called after me before I had taken more than three steps, “I’ve been hearing that you and young Elle have been getting rather…close lately. It would be an honor to perform your nuptials as well. I have a section of Saint Monica’s gospel that would be perfect for the two of you, a lovely scripture about warriors of God.”

  
“No, Father,” I said, struggling to keep from hyperventilating myself. “No wedding. I’ve…gotta go.” I turned and ran the last few feet to the stairwell, determined to make it to my office before I was stopped by any more ‘well-wishers’ bearing juicy tidbits of gossip about my love life.

  
Once in my office, I sagged into my desk chair with a sigh of relief. Alone at last, with no one looking over my shoulder or whispering behind my back. I pulled a box of Fancy Lads snack cakes out of my desk drawer and munched on them while I leafed through the security reports, savoring the sugar rush from the treat. The reports were more of the usual from my officers: Trinnie was offering her favors to anyone who would buy her a beer and then threatening to cut their noogies off in the same breath. Bannon and Seagrave Holmes were still at their never ending catfight about who should be on the council, which had almost degenerated into a fist fight in the Muddy Rudder. Ted Strayer, hopped up on Jet, had gone streaking through the science lab last night yelling something about eating the sun and tripping balls.

  
“Hey boss.” That was Lana Danvers, my second-in-command, coming in for a chat on her way off her night shift. “How’s it hanging?” She laughed. “Oh right, it’s not _hanging_ anymore after your eye groping session with Little Miss Trouble in the bath house last night. Did you get some? Please tell me you got some.” She correctly interpreted the expression that flitted across my face. “You didn’t get any? Boss man, you need to get laid. Desperately.”

  
“Oh god, Lana.” I buried my face in my hands. “Not you too! Is there one person on this boat who **doesn’t** know about last night?”

  
“Well, maybe Pinkerton,” she replied, “but only because he’s been holed up in the broken bow for who knows how long.”

  
“Look, before I say something that gets your imagination all fired up and causes the rest of the boat to spontaneously combust due to all the fluttering and twittering, you should know that absolutely nothing happened. The partition fell down, everybody got a good look, and we’re all adults here. Well, except the Staley girl, and she was a little too busy with her own thing. No, I didn’t get any, and no, it wasn’t performance anxiety because nothing happened. Get it? Nothing! Ergo, there’s no wedding, no purple-haired half cop, half Lone Wanderer illegitimate offspring, and no further comment, okay?”

  
“Wow…got it, boss.” Lana looked a little taken aback at my vehemence, but that didn’t stop the next words out of her mouth. “I understand that you don’t want people to know that you nailed Gary Staley’s little girl **and** the Lone Wanderer in your unexpected, but inevitable, uncontrolled fit of hedonism. Don’t worry boss, your secret’s safe with…”

  
“Stand down, dammit!” I ordered her sharply. “All right, you’ve had your fun, now get back to work before I make you walk the plank. Can we drop it? Please? Now, is there anything new going on that’s not in these reports?”

  
“The lock on the secondary hatch to the marketplace is busted again,” she said, all business now. “It swings open way too easily.”

  
“I’ll get Garza to look at it,” I sighed.

  
“Seriously, someone could get hurt.”

  
“I’ll get right on it, Lana. Anything else?”

  
“Yes, two things actually. One, you know the rest of the council made you remove the plank, so you can’t make me walk something that isn’t there and is historically inaccurate to boot, and two, those damned kids are a menace. They’re down there playing tag in the marketplace with your guuuurlfriend,” she drawled.

  
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I growled, “and they’re just kids. How bad could it be?”

  
“Mark my words,” she said, “first it’s ‘tag,’ then we’ll be hearing a crash and a thud and a scream.”

  
“Quit being so melodramatic,” I said in disbelief. “That’ll never happen.”

  
Famous last words, right? Like she had spoken it into being, the minute Lana mentioned it; there was a loud crash and bone crunching thud, followed by an agonized masculine scream.

  
“What the fuck?!” I cursed, and ran out of my office, Lana hot on my tail, to see what had happened. When I got to the marketplace, I saw my sharpshooter Carlos Whitefeather lying on the ground just outside the faulty hatch, moaning and cradling his shooting hand, surrounded by several other members of security and Doctor Preston, who was ministering to him. Just inside the hatch, I saw the children, C.J. Young and James Hargrave, and the devil herself, all staring at the ground and wearing identical ashamed expressions of utter dejection.

  
“What the hell happened here?!” I thundered in my best ‘Security Chief’ voice! Everyone started to speak at once, and I cut them off with a sharp gesture. “Nobody speaks but Elle. Since she’s the grownup here, or supposed to be.”

  
“We were just playing tag,” Elle said, in a very small voice. “The kids got bored and I said I’d play with them. I was ‘it,’ and I was chasing James. He went around that corner by the hatch, but my foot slipped in a wet patch and I slammed into the door. I didn’t expect it to pop open like that,” she said tearfully, “but it did, and it smashed right into that guy.” She gestured at Carlos. “I guess he was reaching for the handle when the door slammed open, and it hit him in the hand. I’m really sorry, Harkness.” She hadn’t looked up from the floor through her entire recitation of events.

  
“We’re sorry,” the kids chorused. “We won’t do it again.”

  
“Great!” I exclaimed. “Just great! You’ve incapacitated my sharpshooter on the very day we were supposed to escort Doctor Li to Arlington Library to speak with the Brotherhood scribes.” She opened her mouth to apologize and I held up my hand. “Don’t speak, just…don’t speak.” Going over the possibilities in my head, I reached a snap decision about the mission and pinned Elle with a look that had made lesser men cringe. “Since Carlos is no longer able to participate in today’s fun and games, thanks to you, you’ll be taking his place as our sharpshooter. It’s either that or you wait outside the gates until we get back. I’ll be damned if I let you wander this ship when you could be wreaking havoc out there.”

  
A welter of protests rose in the wake of my pronouncement, but I was in no mood. I raised my hand for silence again.

  
“I,” I said slowly, trying to maintain my calm, “am going back to my office, and I don’t want to hear another word from any of you until it’s time to go to the library.” Turning on my heel, I stalked back to my office, praying that no one would be stupid enough to follow me and get the sharp edge of my tongue.


	8. Agricultural Phenomenon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Don Henley - Dirty Laundry, and is told from Mei's POV because we needed a break from Elle and Harkness.

**Agricultural Phenomenon**

  
**Mei**

  
When I came down to breakfast the next day, the marketplace was aflutter with whispers about Chief Harkness and Elle, and to a lesser extent, Angela and Diego. Speculation dripped from every tongue about whether the Chief and the Lone Wanderer were shacking up, and about whether Angela had gone ‘all the way’ with Diego to get him to propose. I knew that the Chief and Elle had both chickened out, but I was the only one who knew for sure. Snippets of various conversations reached my ears as I strolled through the market, feeling much more confident with my new .32 pistol strapped to my hip.

  
“She’s such a slut,” I overheard Trinnie say to Tammy Hargrave, both of whom looked to be nursing mega hangovers after a night of pounding back drinks at the Muddy Rudder. “I’ve been trying to get Chief Harkness to go for me since I got on this damned boat. Life would be so much easier if I could just give him a blow job on the house once in a while and he’d look the other way when I’m trying to score, but no, he won’t have anything to do with me. Then that purple haired skank comes on board and he’s chasing after her like a dog in heat.” She grimaced nastily. “What’s Elle got that I don’t?” she complained.

  
“A life, apparently,” Tammy replied, only semi sympathetic to Trinnie’s bitching, “and better looking tits.” She got to hear complaints in this vein every time a new woman came to Rivet City, and I guessed she must be tired of hearing Trinnie whine all the time.

  
“What was wrong with Chief Harkness last night?” Christie Young asked her husband, Henry. “He looked rather flustered when we came in to use the sauna, and he didn’t even say goodnight when he left. He looked like his head was going to explode. Was it something I said?”

  
“It wasn’t you, honey,” Henry told his wife, patting her hand reassuringly. “The Chief’s just having a midlife crisis. First it’s a woman half his age, next thing you know, he’ll be getting a tattoo and buying a beach house in Point Lookout.”

  
I laughed to myself at this; Chief Harkness was only three years older than Henry himself, not the doddering old fool Henry made him out to be. He was also one of the steadiest people I knew, and didn’t seem likely to suffer from problems like that. Henry knew what was up with the Chief and he didn’t want to tell his wife.

  
“…Did you hear about the new girl and Chief Harkness in the bath house last night?”

  
“…He acted like he’d never seen a naked woman before…”

  
“…Heard she’s here looking for her father…”

  
“…melons, man, out to here…”

  
“…and an ass that just won’t quit…”

  
“…oh man what I would have given to be a fly on that wall…”

  
“…you woulda passed out from the heat…”

  
“…Agriculture, what the hell did you think I was talking about?”

  
“…Three Dog talks about her all the time, said she disarmed the bomb in Megaton…”

  
“…saw them kissing when I came in this morning…”

  
“…Angela finally grew a pair when it came to Diego…”

  
I reached the counter of the Galley and before I could open my mouth to order, Gary Staley cut me off.

  
“I don’t want to know what happened between Diego and my daughter,” he said with the air of a man who had heard it all before. “I’m just glad he’s doing the honorable thing and marrying my little girl.”

  
“I was just going to order some breakfast,” I said mildly.

  
“Sorry, Miss Wong,” he apologized. “It’s just, everyone in the whole damned city has come to tell me about what went on in the bath house last night, and I thought you were here to do the same. What can I get you?”

  
“I’ll have a bowl of noodles and a mutfruit,” I said. “Are you happy that Angela’s marrying Diego?”

  
“Of course,” he said. “She’s been pining after him for I don’t know how long. I’m glad my daughter is finally getting the happiness she deserves.”

  
I got my food and went over to one of the tables to eat. I heard a door slam open and a string of curses drifted through it.

  
“I don’t wanna clean it up,” came the petulant voice of Ted Strayer. “It took me a long time to paint, and it’s the coolest thing this boat has ever seen.”

  
“You’re done being a feckless troublemaker, young man.” That was Mister Lopez, who came in dragging the protesting Ted by the ear. “No more drugs, no more pranks, and starting this afternoon, you’re going to learn how to read. But for now, you’re going to clean up this mess you made on the wall.” He gestured to a brilliantly colored blob on the wall that looked like some of the art I had seen raiders mark their territory with. Ted struggled to no avail to get free of Mister Lopez’s grip on his ear, and I heard Trinnie and Angela giggle at his plight.

  
“You can’t make me clean it if I don’t want to,” Ted asserted, finally breaking free of Mister Lopez.

  
“Oh yes I can,” Mister Lopez replied fiercely.

  
“You and what army, old man?” Ted rounded on Mister Lopez and charged at him, aggravated enough to attack his tormentor. Mister Lopez calmly stepped out of the way of Ted’s wild charge, then just as calmly stuck out a leg and cut Ted’s feet out from under him. Ted fell on his ass and Mister Lopez sat on his midsection as Ted fought to get upright.

  
“I still have a few tricks left in me, you young punk, and until you can stop me from putting you on your ass, you’ll do what I say.” He stood up and offered Ted a hand up. “Now go ask Mister Staley for a bucket and scrub brush. The sooner you clean up your mess, the sooner you can have some breakfast.” Ted looked like he wanted to attack Mister Lopez again, but thought better of it and slunk off to get the cleaning implements amongst the outright laughter of everyone in the marketplace.

  
Elle came to sit with me, still laughing at Ted’s misfortune. She gave Mister Lopez the high sign when Ted’s back was turned, and he smiled at her, the first real smile I had ever seen on the man’s face.

  
“Why do I have the feeling that you’re responsible for bringing Ted Strayer to Mister Lopez’s…less than patient attentions?” I asked.

  
“Because I am,” she replied around her laughter. “I just had no idea that Mister Lopez would be so prompt in turning Ted into a productive member of society, or so capable of dealing with Ted’s rebellious tendencies.” She sobered up for a moment. “I hope Mister Lopez really can curb Ted’s behavior. Harkness is about ready to kill him for the pranks he’s been pulling around here. I’m surprised Ted hasn’t already gotten a one way ticket off of Rivet City. Harkness seems like he has very little tolerance for that sort of thing.”

  
“Yeah, Ted’s a riot,” I said, “but on to more interesting news. I heard that you were seen kissing Chief Harkness a few minutes ago, right here in this very room. Did you finally decide to go next door to his room last night and try him out?”

  
“His room was next to mine?”

  
“Sure, it’s the one to the right of yours,” I said. “I saw him going in last night when we went to your room to get your clothes.” For some reason, Elle blushed bright crimson when I imparted this information. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  
“Nothing, it’s nothing,” she muttered, “and, no, I didn’t go ‘try him out’ as you so crudely put it. And we weren’t kissing this morning. We had to kill some bloatflies that got into the marketplace. I tripped; he caught me, end of story.” From the look on her face, that was definitely not the end of the story, but I sensed I wasn’t going to get the rest of it out of her until she was good and ready.

  
Just then I sensed another presence by our table. It was C.J. Young, followed closely by her erstwhile playmate, James Hargrave.

  
“Hey lady, I like your hair,” C.J. said. “Is it real? Can I touch it?”

  
“Yes, it’s real,” Elle replied, bending down so C.J. could reach the purple locks. “My parents had me genetically engineered with purple hair, so it never washes out in the bath.”

  
C.J. giggled as she touched Elle’s hair. “You’re a funny lady. Where are your mommy and daddy?”

  
“My mom died when I was born,” Elle said, “and my dad’s missing. I came here looking for him, but he’s not here.”

  
“Where is he?” C.J. asked.

  
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Elle muttered.

  
“Enough of this girly crap,” came the annoying voice of James Hargrave, who was a little shit at the best of times. “I’m bored! Can I play with your gun?”

  
“No you cannot ‘play’ with my gun,” Elle scowled at him. “Guns aren’t toys. Maybe if you’re very good and your mom says yes, I’ll teach you how to shoot someday.”

  
“Whatever,” James sneered. “I’m still bored right now.”

  
Elle leaned forward conspiratorially. “Have you guys ever played…tag?”

  
“Sure we have,” James scoffed, then quick as lightning, slapped her on the arm. “You’re it!” He took off running, followed closely by C.J.

  
“Oh, you’re gonna get it!” Elle shrieked, and tore after the kids like a shot, almost knocking down Lana Danvers, who had just come in for breakfast.

  
“Sorry!” Elle threw over her shoulder as she dashed through the marketplace in hot pursuit of the two kids. Lana muttered something about barbarian hordes and headed back the way she came. I shook my head as I finished my breakfast and proceeded out to the shooting range for some more practice. Never a dull moment in Rivet City.


	9. A Trip to the Library

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs for this chapter are Owl City feat Carly Rae Jepsen - Good Time, Champion - No Heaven, and Dev and Enrique Iglesias - Naked.
> 
> A tiny bit of lemon in this chapter, just a slice really.

**A Trip to the Library**

  
**Harkness**

  
I was still seething when it came time to set out for the Arlington Library, and I knew I’d have to get my temper under control if I wanted to concentrate on leading my team. Arlington Library wasn’t too far from Rivet City, but there were several super mutant camps and roving bands of raiders in between us and our destination. Madison Li was too valuable to risk to just anyone, so I would be leading the mission personally while Lana Danvers stayed behind to keep the peace on my boat. I fully expected to come back and find utter chaos reigning in my absence, something I anticipated every time I left Rivet City, but at least the current source of my troubles was here with me and not back raising hell on my ship. Elle paced beside me like she belonged there, finely tuned sniper rifle at the ready and god knows what other armaments strewn about her person. I wasn’t worried about her ability to keep herself and others safe; I was worried that she would have been the principle cause of any mischief done in the city, without even meaning to be, if I’d left her there.

  
Madison had decided she just had to drag all of her underlings with her to the library, so I had to pull extra security to protect not just her but Janice Kaplinsky and Anna Holt as well, since none of these eggheads knew how to shoot worth a damn. With me, besides Elle, were four of my most trusted guards from the city and two mercs I had hired to be trailblazers. One of them wore an obviously well cared for set of recon armor and looked like he knew his stuff. The other one, I was a little…dubious about. He wore a bright red shirt that stuck out against the wasteland like a sore thumb and he seemed more than a little wet behind the ears, but I was willing to give him a chance.

  
I had directed my men into a diamond formation around myself, Elle, and the scientists, with the two mercs taking extreme point. Elle was my backup, in case the shit really hit the fan and someone needed killing from afar, but I was hoping for a nice, easy trip to the library and back. _Yeah right_ , whispered the little voice in my head. _That’s like hoping that the super mutants will invite you to dinner and not eat you as the main course._

  
“That’s a real nice rifle,” I commented to Elle. The rifle in question looked like any other sniper rifle I had seen, but had the word ‘Victory’ anodized onto the receiver in big, pre-war U.S. flag patterned letters.

  
“Isn’t she though?” Elle caressed the stock in a move that made my ‘stock’ sit up and take notice. “I’ve had her for a while, and she’s never let me down. She has a bigger clip than most sniper rifles too.”

  
“Where’d you get her?” I asked.

  
“An abandoned shack above a random gas station, out in the boonies. It was the weirdest thing; whoever was living there was keeping two radroaches as pets in a cage, and he had a teddy bear holding a whiskey bottle on his bed. I found a holotape that suggests his name was Ralphie Keller, but whoever he was, he was long gone. I opened a locker in the shack, and this beauty fell out into my arms, along with a note that said ‘Take care of Victory.’ So I took her with me and fixed her up, and she shoots like a dream.”

  
I shook my head. “Radroaches for pets? Guy must have been more than a little nuts.” I looked over at her to see her gazing at the rifle with a look of adoration on her face that most women reserved for small, fluffy animals. “I’ve noticed that you get all misty-eyed over your guns, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Why is that?”

  
She laughed depreciatingly. “I guess I’ve always had a thing for guns. Dad gave me a BB gun for my tenth birthday, and that was the beginning of the end. He and his friend Jonas stole the spring from Butch’s switchblade to fix the gun up for me, and Officer Gomez taught me how to be deadly accurate with it. Once I got out of the vault, there were just so many more new guns to play with. No one had guns in the vault but the security guards, and those were just shitty little 10mm pistols.”

  
“Shitty little 10mm pistols?” I mocked her laughingly. “My, we have snobby taste in guns.”

  
“Well,” she shrugged, “I just like the bigger calibers, that’s all.”

  
We hadn’t gotten very far before our trailblazing mercs stopped, giving the hand signal for possible danger. I acknowledged the signal and halted the party, my guards alert for any sign of a threat, and that was when I heard the report of a hunting rifle, just as the guy in the red shirt’s head blew up.

  
“Get to cover, people!” I yelled over the sound of screaming scientists. I clapped my hand over Janice Kaplinsky’s mouth to shut her up and motioned everyone to crouch down behind the concrete barriers in the road. “Hoppi, Forehand, stay here with the civvies. Stouffer, Edwards, you’re on point. Elle, you’re with me.

  
We had stumbled upon a new super mutant camp, less than a mile from Rivet City, and I knew this would be a problem later. Right now, though, I just wanted to concentrate on getting myself and all my people safely to our destination and back. Elle and I ducked behind a concrete barrier as Stouffer and Edwards moved up the narrow road that was the only way into the camp. I saw that I had trained my men well by the way they moved; one would advance to the next barricade while the other one provided covering fire, then they would switch. Elle popped off the occasional shot with Victory when the opportunity presented itself, and I laid down additional fire with my assault rifle. The two guards were three quarters of the way up the road when a super mutant got off a lucky shot and hit Edwards in the arm just as he was dropping down behind the barrier to do a magazine change.

  
“I’m hit!” Edwards cried. He tried to hold his gun steady and continue the fight, but it was obvious that the wound, while not life-threatening, was severely impairing his shooting ability.

  
“Edwards, retreat to the bottom of the hill on my mark!” I yelled. “Stouffer, cover him! Elle, we’re going up. You go first while I cover you. Get to that rock and look for a target when I draw their fire. Get ready!”

  
We leapfrogged to Edwards’ position then laid down covering fire while Stouffer patched up his battle buddy. Edwards looked at his rig, shook his head, and unclipped two of his mag pouches. “No way am I carrying all this back down the hill.” He handed them to Stouffer, who grinned and clipped them to his own gear. “Give them hell for me, buddy,” Edwards said, and slithered down the road as fast as he was able to with bullets whizzing over his head continuously; turning back occasionally to lighten his load with a few spent bullets. Elle and I advanced a little further, making it almost all the way up the road, when we were pinned down behind two adjoining pieces of torn up asphalt. Resting a moment with our backs against the warm stone, I turned to look at Elle, who looked like she was having the time of her life.

  
It was about this time that we heard a large party of super mutants getting ready to flank us. I decided to let them get stupid, and give them a minute to hunker down so they’d get brave. “Elle,” I said in a low voice, “let’s stay here a minute so we can really corn-hole these morons when they think they’ve got the drop on us.” She nodded and grinned at my strategy.

  
“So,” I said conversationally, raising my voice to be heard over the gunfire, “Father Clifford says you made a large donation to the church in Rivet City.” I paused a moment to peer around our cover and estimate how many super mutants we were up against. Having counted four, including a really nasty looking one with a mini gun, I quickly pulled my head back and continued, “You didn’t strike me as the religious type. So what gives?” I fired off a few shots with my rifle to discourage the mutants on the right from coming any farther down the hill.

  
“I went in there to talk to Diego, and I needed a legitimate reason to be in the church, something other than interrogating the acolyte. Besides,” she said, whipping out her own assault rifle and gunning down a super mutant that was getting too close to our shelter, “Father Clifford needed the hundred caps more than I needed that mini nuke that Flak was ‘hiding’ behind his counter.”

  
I laughed a little at that statement. I knew very well that Flak had not one, but several mini nukes behind his counter. They weren’t on public display with the rest of his wares because Bannon and some of the other residents of Rivet City had put up a stink about him keeping such ‘unstable’ ordinance in the city, and had insisted that he get rid of them. Bannon was worried about radiation leakage or some such nonsense, but I, having done my homework on all things weapon related, knew it was just that. Nonsense. So Flak pretended he didn’t have the nukes any more, and I pretended that I believed what he told Bannon and all the other busybodies. Flak must really like Elle if he let her see his reserve stock.

  
“Good,” I said, topping off my mag and shooting another super mutant. “I was afraid you were going all pious on me.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Mind you, I have nothing against the church; it’s just not for me. The only things I believe in are a warm gun and a cold beer.”

  
“A man after my own heart,” Elle laughed. “Praise the lord and pass the ammunition!”

  
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” The voice of Madison Li floated up from the bottom of the hill. “We’re in the middle of a firefight and you’re having a tea party up there.” Even Stouffer was shaking his head at our byplay. I could hear the mutants behind me getting their shit together for a charge, and it was now or never to take care of the problem.

  
“Fine, Madison,” I called down to her. “You want to see me play the big, bad warrior, watch closely because I am not doing this again. On three,” I told Elle in a whisper. She nodded, and at my count, we both popped out of cover and hosed the mutants with bullets, killing all but the one with the mini gun. Nothing we had done so far had fazed him much, and I wondered how we were going to deal with the threat he posed. I braced myself for the possibility of taking a bullet myself when I broke cover to shoot at the mutant, and it was then that I heard the unmistakable sound of the pin being pulled on a grenade. I looked at Stouffer and Elle, but neither one had a grenade in hand.

  
“What the…?” I muttered, and then the mutant exploded. Literally. I heard laughter that could only be described as ‘deranged’ at best, and then our first merc melted out of the rocks, recon armor shedding its camouflage as he moved.

  
“Bastards shot my favorite gun.” He shook his head sadly. “That’s why I had to use the old Shady Sands Shuffle on this ugly git. Luckily, I have plenty of grenades on hand.” He grinned maniacally, and I suspected he had pulled that particular trick more than once in the past.

  
“Time to go, people!” I yelled down the hill. “Get your shit together! Edwards, are you fit to continue, or should I send you back?”

  
“I’m good, Chief,” he yelled back. “It’s just a through and through. I’ll give it a seal and a stimpak, and in a few hours, it’ll be just another pucker hole for the missus to gripe about.”

  
We rounded the scientists up again and set off once more for the library, carefully skirting what was left of the merc in the red shirt. Janice Kaplinsky looked like she was going to be sick at the sight of the remains, and I wondered how she could be so squeamish and still be an effective scientist. Elle glanced down at the corpse and shook her head.

  
“He must be the unluckiest son of a bitch to ever walk the waste,” she said.

  
“Why do you say that?” Anna Holt asked.

  
“That was one hell of a shot that super mutant made, to not only kill him at that distance, but with a head shot no less,” Elle replied. “I mean, I’ve seen a lot of guys get their heads blown off, and it’s different every time. Sometimes the bullet leaves a small entrance wound and a slightly larger exit wound; sometimes it takes off half the head. I’ve never seen a head just…explode…quite like that. Hey, you’ve got some gray matter on you,” she said, reaching out to brush the brains off Anna’s shoulder. “Wonder how it got all the way back to you when he was on point?” Anna recoiled and gave Elle a look that was a mixture of incredulity, repugnance, and shock.

  
“What is the matter with you?” she breathed. “You…you’re just…creepy. Get the hell away from me!”

  
“What?” Elle was genuinely puzzled. “You’re the scientist. All this stuff about the mechanics of a head shot shouldn’t be news to you.” She gave up when Anna turned away from her, shooting the woman a look that was equal parts hurt feelings and spiteful glee at making the unflappable scientist squirm. I got the feeling that Madison wasn’t the only one who’d been rude to Elle when she showed up in the lab for the first time.

  
We managed to make it to the library without further incident, avoiding the raiders who usually camped out near the building. When we got inside, we were confronted by several Brotherhood knights, who directed us to a woman in a red leather robe, who I assumed was Scribe Yearling. She looked a little irritated to have company, but agreed to speak to Madison and her team. Elle and I made to follow them to the scribe’s workstation until Madison flapped her hand at us in an unmistakable shooing motion.

  
“Why don’t you two go…kill something, instead of hanging over my shoulder,” she said in a condescending tone. “Scribe Yearling says this building is infested with raiders. You can start with them.”

  
“Alright,” I said, taking the hint that we were not wanted in this discussion and moving away. “I bust my ass escorting her here,” I muttered under my breath, “and now she wants me to go kill raiders. I’ll kill every raider in the damned building,” I growled, just as Elle muttered, “I’ll bet they have better manners than you do, you arrogant bitch.” We glanced at each other and laughed. “We might as well go kill the damned raiders,” I shrugged. “I’ve still got some adrenaline to work off, and there’s no telling how long she’ll be in conference with the scribe.”

  
“Besides,” Elle laughed, “who wants to just kick up their feet? We can rest when we’re dead. Let’s go kick some raider ass!”

  
“One moment,” Scribe Yearling called after us. “If you find any pre-war books in the ruins, I will pay a fair price for them.” She held up a small book with a plain green cover. “They look similar to this one.”

  
“Will do,” Elle said, throwing the scribe a mock salute, then rubbing her hands together. “More caps are always welcome. And this time, I will buy that mini nuke of Flak’s.”

  
We spent several tedious hours clearing the scum out of the library. I almost felt bad about killing the raiders; they hardly put up a worthy fight, but it had to be done. After we’d scoured the children’s section and determined that it was free of squatters, Elle picked a relatively undamaged story book from the pile she had assembled for the scribe, and proceeded to read it to me in a saccharine sweet voice, performing the various characters with flawless timing that had me rolling on the floor with laughter. She managed to keep a straight face until the end of the story, then surrendered to hilarity over the main character’s descriptions of his improbable adventures. We were still chuckling over the story when we pushed open the doors to the lobby, and were greeted by an irate Madison Li.

  
“Where have you two been?” she demanded. “We’ve been done for almost an hour.”

  
“Sorry,” I said, completely unrepentantly.

  
“We were killing raiders and finding books,” Elle chimed in ingenuously, “just like you said.”

  
“Whatever,” Madison grumped. “Let’s go.”

  
“Hold on a sec, boss,” piped up our one remaining merc. “Something’s up with my armor. I’ll need half an hour to fix it before I can take point again.”

  
“Listen, buddy,” I muttered, leaning in close so the others wouldn’t overhear us, “I can’t wait that long to get these know-it-alls off my hands. You’ve got fifteen minutes. Elle and I will go out and establish a perimeter; you stay here and try to keep the scientists out of trouble while you fix your armor. You have my permission to slap Doctor Li if she gets out of line. Boys,” I raised my voice to be heard by the whole party, “keep the eggheads safe while I scout out the area. We’ll leave once...what **is** your name?” I asked the merc.

  
“Parsifal,” he replied, and I did a double take. I started to say something, then shook my head and continued.

  
“We’ll leave once…Parsifal is done fixing his armor. Understood?”

  
“Yes, sir,” my guards chorused.

  
“Elle, you’re with me,” I said.

  
“Sure thing, Harkness,” she replied. “Let me just ditch this extra weight.”

  
Elle turned her stack of books over to Scribe Yearling and received a handsome payment for her troubles. She was still exulting over her windfall of caps when we walked out the front door and I motioned for her to check left while I checked right.

  
“How does your side look?” I asked.

  
“…Looks…clear,” she said, and that was when the missile hit a pile of rubble next to us, blowing it up and knocking us to the ground. I felt razor sharp pieces of metal embed themselves in my back as I fell, and I landed with an agonized groan. From behind me, I heard a whimper of pain from Elle.

  
“Ouch!” she wailed, then gasped as she sat up, clutching her side. “Oh shit! Piece of shrapnel nearly took out one of my best assets,” she moaned, cupping her breasts to check for further damage. “Whew, still there.”

  
I levered myself to my feet, grunting with pain, then reached a hand down to help her up. When I pulled her to her feet, I noticed a metallic gleam just above the top of her armor. A three inch piece of shrapnel was stuck in her collarbone.

  
“Jesus, Elle!” I breathed, and she looked down to see what I was gaping at.

  
“A few inches to the left and I’d have been a goner.” She swallowed hard, braced herself, and pulled the shard out of her flesh with a hiss of pain.

  
“I thought you said it was clear?” I rebuked her.

  
“I said it ‘looks’ clear,” she retorted.

  
“Well, how does it look now?” I gritted.

  
She didn’t even bother to turn around. “Looks clear.”

  
Over her shoulder, I saw a figure in black combat armor taking a bead on us with a sniper rifle. “Duck!” I yelled, pushing her out of the line of fire.

  
“That’s her!” the figure shrieked. “Kill the man too!” and then we were rushed by four or five men with the distinctive crest of Talon Company mercs emblazoned on their armor.

  
“How did you manage to piss off Talon Company?” I shouted to Elle as I dove for cover.

  
“Oh, the usual!” she shouted back, pulling out her hand cannon and ducking around the corner of the building. “They don’t like goody-two-shoes, and I am one. Plus, I declined Alistair Tenpenny’s offer to blow up Megaton. So he put out a bounty on my head, and these assholes have been trying to collect.” She rounded the corner to put a bullet between the eyes of one of the mercs. “I thought the stupid fucks would have gotten bored of this game after I offed Tenpenny and cleaned out his tower, but I guess these guys haven’t heard the news.”

  
I took out my submachine gun and sprayed another one of the men with a rain of bullets. He went down in a puddle of blood and didn’t get back up. I grazed the next one in the temple, and that dazed him long enough for Elle to double-tap him in the chest. “We’ll put that one on your kill count,” I joked. We each accounted for one of the remaining two, then the front door to the library opened and Parsifal the merc stepped out.

  
“Hey boss, I finished fixing my…Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what happened here?!” he gasped, taking the scene of carnage and the blood running freely from our wounds.

  
“Elle and I had a fundamental difference of opinion with Talon Company,” I joked weakly. “They wanted to kill us, and we objected. Strenuously.”

  
Just then, Madison Li breezed out the door like she hadn’t a care in the world, followed by her team and my four guards “Harkness, your merc…friend says he’s done fiddling with his armor, so I don’t see any reason to stay here. Hurry up! I want to be back to my lab before the sun sets and we have to camp somewhere for the night.”

  
Elle’s mouth was hanging open, and I know mine was as well, at the fact that Madison didn’t even seem to notice the battlefield she’d stepped into. I closed my mouth and shook my head, motioning security to take up their positions around us again. Hoppi silently handed me and Elle rolls of bandages pulled from his pack, and we used it to stop the worst of the bleeding as we set off for home.

  
Mercifully, we made it back to Rivet City without getting into any more trouble, a fact that I privately rejoiced at, despite my urge to take out my frustrations on a whole pack of raiders. I yearned to shoot Madison somewhere painful for being so insensitive, but I manfully squashed the impulse as counterproductive. The scientists split off for the lab the minute we hit the deck plating outside the main door, without even a word of thanks. I might have to have a word with Madison later on the subject of manners, and how the size of your brain did not entitle you to treat others like lower forms of life. My four guards split off as well, presumably to a well-earned rest after the day we’d had. I paid Parsifal the merc the sum he’d been promised, and he left to do…whatever deranged mercs with disposable income do when they’ve just gotten paid. Then it was just me…and Elle, standing alone together in the growing dusk.

  
“Come up to my office,” I suggested. “I’ll do you if you’ll do me.”

  
She blushed so hard that I could feel the heat coming off her face from where I stood. “I don’t think either one of us is in any condition to…,” she started.

  
“Your wounds,” I said patiently. “I’ll dress your wounds if you’ll look at mine. I’ve got some shrapnel in my back that’s been driving me nuts this whole time, but I can’t reach it by myself.”

  
“Well why didn’t you say something hours ago, you silly man?” she said tartly. “Let’s go get cleaned up.”

  
She trailed me up to my office, an awkward silence growing between us despite the earlier camaraderie we had shared. I kept a well-stocked first aid kit in my desk; some inner instinct making me reluctant to go to the doctor for anything less than a life-threatening emergency, and this definitely didn’t qualify as such. We dragged our aching bodies up several flights of stairs, unfortunately necessary to reach the bridge, and I sighed with relief to see my own modest door. I ushered Elle into my office and shut the door firmly behind us, praying for enough time to relax and lick my wounds before the next crisis arose that absolutely demanded my attention.

  
“I hate to ask,” I said apologetically, clearing off a space on the top of my desk and sitting down on it, “but can you help me get my armor off? I think I might rip out some of the shrapnel in my back if I try to get it off on my own.”

  
“Sure,” Elle said. “I was about to suggest that we look at your wounds first. I have a feeling you got the worst of it.” She pried my armor off, going slowly and carefully to avoid hurting me. Even so, I hissed in pain several times when she encountered pieces that were stuck on with dried blood or were melted around the metal in my back. She handed me the top piece of my armor when she had removed it, and set about cutting off my shirt with her knife.

  
“Shit!” I grumbled, examining the gaping holes that the shards of metal had put in my armor. “Punched right through it. There’s no repairing this set; good thing I have a spare.” She got my shirt off and offered it to me wordlessly. “Trash,” I said. “There’s no saving that either.”

  
“Who are Mike and the Mechanics?” she asked, referring to the faded logo on what had been my shirt.

  
“Hell if I know,” I shrugged. “I bought it off a trader years ago. He said he found it in a pre-war store somewhere. It’s comfortable…was comfortable,” I amended, “and it fit, so I wore it.”

  
“Mike and the Mechanics, whoever you were, may you rest in peace,” Elle intoned as she ceremoniously dropped the shirt in the trash. She turned back to me and grimaced as she surveyed my back. “Do you have any painkillers?” she said doubtfully. “There’s a few big pieces stuck in pretty deep, plus plenty of little bits. It’s gonna hurt like a bitch when I go to pull this stuff out.”

  
I opened my first aid kit and pulled out a bottle of the harsh homebrewed vodka that we distilled in the bowels of the ship. “We’ll save the good stuff for the people who really need it,” I said, uncorking the bottle with my teeth. “A few pulls off of this and I won’t feel a thing. Plus, it’s a great antiseptic, kills almost any germ it comes into contact with.” I took a healthy swig and gasped as the liquid heat burned its way down my throat and into my empty stomach. “Just splash some of this on my back before you start and some more when you’re done; it’s almost pure alcohol.” I took another couple of drinks and looked at the bottle musingly. “Makes an excellent rust remover too. Have to be careful with that, most of the ship is goddamn rust.” I put the bottle down with a clunk, already feeling the potent liquor loosening my muscles…and my tongue. “Do it!”

  
I’ll give her credit, Elle was gentle, but there’s only so gentle you can be when pulling pieces of metal out of someone’s flesh. She tried to be quick about removing the shrapnel, but I still gasped and groaned in agony, my body unconsciously arching away from the flares of pain. When the pain subsided, I took another drink to steady my nerves, not even concerned with trying to appear ‘manly’ in front of her. “Fuck!” I wheezed, hunched over against the discomfort. “Please tell me that was the last of the big pieces.”

  
“That was the last of the big pieces,” she replied. “Let me irrigate the wounds and get the blood and some of the little pieces out, and then I’ll pick the rest out with tweezers,” she said, splashing my back with a bottle of purified water. “I thought you said you wouldn’t feel a thing after drinking that rotgut? That stuff’s so strong that I’m getting drunk off the fumes.”

  
“I lied,” I said succinctly. “It takes a **lot** more alcohol to get me to the numb stage.”

  
“I guess I’m glad you never took me up on my challenge to drink me under the table,” she said ruefully as she picked tiny pieces of metal out of my flesh with a pair of tweezers.

  
“A lightweight,” I grinned through the pain, and managed a wicked laugh. “We’re gonna have some fun with you. How did you get to the ripe old age of nineteen without being able to hold your liquor?”

  
“The overseer wasn’t a big fan of alcohol for anything other than medicinal purposes, and even that was a stretch. He would rather that the resources be put to other purposes, and he enforced a minimum drinking age of twenty one for all vault residents. So, not much alcohol available in the vault, and none for any of us kids.” She laughed bitterly. “Butch managed to steal a couple of bottles of scotch from the security chief’s private reserve when we were sixteen and dared the rest of us to drink it, to prove we weren’t chicken. There were eight of us, including me, and nobody wanted Butch to think we couldn’t handle it, so we all took a drink. Even Amata, who went last because she was worried that her dad would find out.” She grimaced. “The stuff tasted horrible, but Butch kept drinking it, and none of us were willing to admit that we didn’t like it, so we kept drinking too.”

  
“How’d that turn out?” I asked, pretty sure what the answer would be.

  
“Two bottles of the good stuff, shared out among eight kids who had no tolerance for liquor? How do you think it turned out?” Elle smirked. “All of us wound up with massive hangovers, and of course, the adults knew very well what we’d been doing. Hard to miss when your child comes in past curfew reeking of scotch and spends the next three hours hunched over the toilet. So we all got punished, even Butch, whose mom normally couldn’t give a shit what he was up to.”

  
“I can only imagine,” I laughed.

  
“Every single one of us got woken up at six o’clock the next morning. Freddy’s dad did his impression of an old time drill sergeant, screaming at the top of his lungs. Wally and Susie got buckets of ice cold water dumped on them. I, having a much more…inventive and sadistic father, got bombarded with subliminal messages that made me have to use the bathroom…urgently. I had to get up or I would have been changing my sheets along with all the other chores I got punished with. The overseer decided that the vault needed a thorough cleaning, top to bottom, and that children who had the temerity to get drunk on stolen liquor were just the workforce needed to do the cleaning. Even Amata got punished, which surprised the hell out of all the other kids. I knew better; the overseer wouldn’t hesitate to penalize his own daughter if he thought she deserved it.”

  
“That’s inventive,” I said. “How long did it take you to clean the vault?”

  
“All summer,” she replied ruefully. “Hand me that bottle please.”

  
“What?” I asked stupidly, having consumed rather more of said bottle than was really wise. “Oh, here,” I passed her the bottle. “You’re done already?”

  
“Distracted you with my tales of woe, did I?” she asked. “Yes, I’m done. I pulled out as many of the pieces as I could find, but you may have more of them work to the surface in the next few months. Let me just disinfect these and bandage them up so you don’t get an infection.”

  
“Thanks,” I murmured. “You’re quite the professional when it comes to removing chunks of metal from dumb-shit security chiefs. Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  
“Well, my dad **is** a doctor,” she grinned. “I picked up a few things from helping him in the clinic. Straighten up and hold your arms out,” she said, wrapping a roll of gauze around my torso to keep my wounds covered. “All done.”

  
“You’re a lifesaver, Elle,” I sighed. “That feels a hundred times better than it did twenty minutes ago. Now, take off your armor so I can have a look at your injuries.”

  
“Yes, Doctor Harkness,” she giggled, clearly still a little nervous around me. She peeled off her armor with a groan and tossed it on the ground. “I don’t even want to know what kind of damage they did to my armor,” she grumped. “I just replaced half of it, and I have a feeling that I’m going to have to replace the other half now, if not just junk the whole set and get another.” She stood before me in just her pants and a thin, enticingly fitted camisole, lifting the shirt to show me where the shrapnel had cut deeply into her right side, directly under her breast.

  
“Elle,” I said sternly, “you’re going to have to take the shirt all the way off if you want me to dress your wounds. There’s not much left of it, anyway,” I rebutted when she made to protest.

  
“All right,” she blushed, turning away from me and stripping off her tattered shirt with a reluctance that I found simultaneously cute and annoying.

  
“What’s the holdup?” I griped as she turned back to me, and that’s when I discovered that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath the shirt. My eyes widened at the sight of her bared breasts, seen twice in less than twenty four hours, and she flushed almost crimson, covering herself with her hands.

  
“I tried to tell you I wasn’t wearing a bra!” she hissed, shivering beneath my regard, “but you wouldn’t listen. I had to leave it off to make the armor fit properly.”

  
“Calm down,” I commanded, speaking as much to my unruly man parts as to her. “It’s not like I haven’t seen them before, and you’ll have to come over here eventually if you want me to look at them…I mean the damage.” My even tone belied the chaos that just the sight of her naked flesh was causing in my nerves, and I mentally ordered myself to treat her like just one of the guys. I had a feeling that I was going to fail miserably at that endeavor, but I had to remain professional, at least for the moment.

  
Elle came over and sat gingerly on the edge of my desk, her feet swinging several inches above the floor in a rather endearing way. She lowered her arms stiffly to her sides and stared at my collarbone, refusing to look me in the eye.

  
“Here,” I handed her the bottle of raw vodka. “Have a few sips of this for the pain.” She swigged manfully on the bottle, coughed as the heat from the liquor hit her untried palate, then took several more, much smaller gulps of the potent stuff.

  
“Whoa,” I said, taking the bottle from her hand when her eyes began to glaze over. “You gotta be careful with this stuff. It’s much stronger than you’re used to.”

  
“No kidding,” she said thickly. “I would have mixed it with Nuka Cola to make it taste better.” She giggled as the alcohol hit her system. “This is where you tell me a story to distract me while you pull sharp bits of metal out of my tender flesh,” she said, still not looking directly at me.

  
“Well,” I said, “since we seem to be sharing stories about drinking, I’ve got a doozy for you.”

  
“Do tell?” she smirked.

  
“Sixteen was a bad year for both of us, I guess, because that was when I decided to try hard liquor for the first time too. I stole a big bottle of the moonshine my dad was always brewing down in the basement, and invited one of the neighbor girls to share in the bounty. She was always giving me the look, and I had every intention of getting laid in addition to getting as drunk as humanly possible, so we set out to my hidey hole in a cave outside town. I’d put down some bedding, a few pillows, made a nice little love nest to increase my chances, and it looked like it was working.”

  
“So…?” she waggled her eyebrows suggestively at me.

  
“So we got drunk, clothes came off, and everything was going great…until we fell asleep,” I sighed.

  
“And you didn’t get laid after all?” Elle asked.

  
“That isn’t even the worst part,” I groaned. “When we woke up from our alcoholic stupor, she was still in a frisky mood, and things were getting hot and heavy. Then she giggled and said that I sounded like a yao guai in heat, and that’s when I realized that we weren’t alone in the cave.”

  
“Let me guess…?” she laughed.

  
“I had forgotten that it was mating season for the yao guai, and we were now sharing our cave with a pair that were in the middle of, shall we say, amorous activities, so wrapped up in what they were doing that they hadn’t even noticed us.”

  
“What did you do?!” Elle gasped.

  
“The yao guai were rutting on top of our clothes, and I wasn’t about to interrupt them to get our things back, so we waited until the two finished and fell asleep. Then we very quietly snuck out the tiny back tunnel of the cave and ran back to town as fast as our legs would carry us. Buck naked. I got one hell of a beating when I got home, both for stealing the moonshine, and for defiling the neighbor girl, despite my protestations that I **hadn’t** actually gotten the chance to defile her.”

  
“And the neighbor girl?” she asked.

  
“Never spoke to me again,” I said, “and shortly thereafter, her family found a better community and moved away. It was a while before I wanted to drink again, and I always remembered to check any cave I entered for yao guai droppings before I made myself comfortable in it.”

  
“Nope,” Elle shook her head solemnly, “sixteen wasn’t a good year for either one of us. Hey, what are you doing?”

  
I had almost finished cleaning her wounds, saving the one on her side for last, and I was holding her breast out of the way with one hand while swabbing the laceration with the other. I had been working on autopilot while I was telling my story, and hadn’t even realized that I had been virtually fondling her until she protested.

  
“Sorry,” I muttered, snatching my hand away like I’d been burned. “Looks like I did too good of a job of distracting both of us. Let me just put some gauze on this and you’re good to go.” I covered the wound, carefully not touching anything more than the area being bandaged, then turned to put the roll of gauze back in my first aid kit. When I turned back, Elle gave me a sultry look through half-lidded eyes and grabbed my empty hands, guiding them toward her breasts.

  
“I only asked you what you were doing,” she purred. “I didn’t tell you to stop. Besides, everyone knows that self-exams aren’t enough to catch that extra bit of metal wedged in there.” She ran her fingers down my chest, stopping at the waistband of my pants and grinning at the way I quivered beneath her touch.

  
“Elle…I,” I swallowed hard and tried to ignore the blaze of heat that sprang up in me at her slightest touch. “Are you sure?”

  
“Stop stalling and kiss me, Harkness,” she whispered, and I was lost. I covered her mouth with my own, desperate to see what she tasted like outside of my heated dreams. My hands were still plastered to her breasts, thumbs stroking over her pert nipples, just as I had in my dream, and she moaned and arched into my touch, sending a wave of heat pouring through my body. Her hands stole down to my fly, undoing it with clever fingers, and she almost had my pants off before I caught her wrist. She made an annoyed sound at being stymied, and I tilted her head up so she would look at me.

  
“Hey,” I murmured, fighting for breath, “slow down, sweetheart. We’ve got all night. No need to rush things.” I bent down to taste the pink confections that had so lately haunted my dreams, and Elle almost squirmed out of my grasp when my tongue touched her. I explored her silky skin with my mouth and hands, taking my sweet time with each breast and drawing involuntary noises of pleasure from her. I had intended to draw out the anticipation and savor every brush of flesh against flesh, but Elle grew impatient and fisted her hands in my hair, drawing me back up to her mouth with a growl of frustration. I caressed her mouth with my own, building the flames higher, then gasped soundlessly as she reached inside my pants to rub my aching erection, her eager hands urging me to throw caution to the wind. I groaned and bent her back over my desk, intent on taking her right then and there and damn the consequences.

  
“Hey, boss, how’d the mission go? Stouffer says you saw some…action.” Lana Danvers, who, by god, was going to learn to **knock** from now on, poked her head through my office door. “Whoa, boss man, sorry. Didn’t know you were getting some. I’ll just…,” she made helpless motions toward the door.

  
“No… **no!** That’s really okay,” Elle stuttered, blushing such a deep red that I thought her head might explode and yanking her hand out of my pants with astonishing speed. “Harkness and I were just...I was just leaving!” she stammered, jerking her camisole top back on and grabbing her gear from the floor. “Thanks for patching me up and…everything. Goodnight.” She practically mowed Lana down in her haste to get out of my office.

  
“Wait…,” I called entreatingly, but it was too late. She was gone, and my hard on was throbbing insistently, reminding me of what I was missing.

  
“Fuck!” I swore savagely as I zipped up my pants and belted half the bottle of vodka to calm my screaming nerves. I leveled a world class glare at Lana and shook my finger in her face. “This does not leave my office, you understand? I hear one word in the marketplace tomorrow about my sex life, any rumors about me and Elle that sound even close to the truth, and I’ll bust you back down to mirelurk cleanup duty so fast your head will spin.”

  
“Sorry, Harkness,” Lana said, shamefacedly. “I guess I should learn to knock, huh?”

  
“Everybody on this goddamned boat needs to learn to knock,” I growled. “I swear to god, I’m gonna booby trap this door, and the next person that comes in without knocking is going to get a nasty surprise. I glanced down at the bulge in my pants and groaned. “What the fuck am I supposed to do about this?” Lana stifled a laugh and I shot her a disgusted look as I turned away. “Oughta make you take care of it,” I muttered under my breath, “except the thought of you anywhere near my dick frankly scares me.”

  
“I… am going to get very drunk now and go to bed,” I announced with great dignity. “You can bother me when my shift starts tomorrow morning, and not before.”

  
“I really am sorry I interrupted you, boss man,” Lana said. “You should go find Elle and try again, someplace a little more private than your office.”

  
“Somehow I don’t think she’s anywhere to be found right now,” I grumped. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get drunk and paint my office door.”

  
“Huh?” she asked.

  
“You’ll see in the morning,” I said, and very firmly shooed her out of my office.

  
I spent the rest of the night swilling vodka, cursing my bad luck, and painting in big, bold letters on my office door ‘ **KNOCK FIRST, GODDAMNIT!** ’


	10. Curiosity Killed the Cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs for this chapter are Ke$ha - Die Young and Carly Rae Jepsen - This Kiss.

**Curiosity Killed the Cat**

  
**Trielle**

  
After my interrupted grope session with Harkness the previous night, I wasn’t eager to face anyone in Rivet City, least of all the man himself. Reluctant to stay holed up in my room all day, I decided that today would be a fine day to try my luck with the broken off bow section of the ship where Horace Pinkerton was rumored to live. Well, **haunt** was the word people had been using, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to see if the man was still alive. By all accounts, he was the only one in Rivet City who knew how the city had really been started, something that Moira in Megaton dearly wanted to know for her Wasteland Survival Guide.

  
For that alone, I was willing to brave the mirelurk infested area, but I had another motive for seeking him out. I’d been finding holotapes all over the Capital Wasteland about a runaway android from the north who was looking to lose his past. According to the last tape I found, he’d been directed to Pinkerton for the facial reconstruction and memory swap, and I desperately wanted to know just who the android was, even though I’d been warned off by a belligerent woman named Victoria Watts who ran an underground railroad for escaped androids. She had given me an android component, had instructed me to give it to Doctor Zimmer if I felt any mercy for the escaped synthman, and tell the doctor that the android was dead. I had no intention of turning the android over to the doctor, no matter who he was now, but never let it be said that my overweening sin isn’t curiosity. It had gotten me into trouble more than once, but I could no more stop poking my nose into everything than I could stop breathing.

  
So I buckled on my spare set of armor, shouldered my trusty Chinese assault rifle, and set off to beard the wild Pinkerton in his lair. Since I didn’t fancy a dip in the river to get to the underwater entrance of the broken bow, I spent a frustrating half hour picking the lock on the other door into the area, only to be confronted with a bewildering array of traps and several very nasty mirelurks. I’d missed breakfast in my haste to get away from anyplace public, so I munched on barbequed mirelurk, charred over the flames of one of Pinkerton’s booby traps and seasoned with a splash of Nuka Cola. Thus fortified, I thought I was prepared to deal with anything the world could throw at me.

  
I was wrong.

  
When I finally made my way to Horace Pinkerton, he was obliging enough to interrupt his work to tell me all about how he founded Rivet City. Perhaps _obliging_ wasn’t the word, but he didn’t throw me out on my ass, so I considered that a plus. He rambled on about how the city had been an abandoned aircraft carrier, taken over by the Naval Research Institute for the hydroponics bay in the bowels of the ship, interspersed with grumblings about how Doctor Li had come in and taken over **his** lab, co-opted **his** team for her purposes, and driven him out of the lab into the broken bow of the ship. I sympathized with him over Doctor Li’s serious lack of people skills, and took copious notes for Moira’s book, but all too soon his egomaniacal ramblings started to get on my nerves. Despite his hatred for my nemesis, he was starting to repeat himself, and I hastily changed the subject to his work on the android. At first, he tried to act like he didn’t know what I was talking about, but after I played him the holotapes I had collected and stroked his ego a bit, he readily spilled the beans.

  
_Harkness_ , he had said. The android called himself Harkness now. Through the thundering in my ears, I vaguely registered him droning on about how easy the whole thing had been, how he’d kept detailed records of the process in case he ever needed to use them against Doctor Li. He offered me a couple of pictures and a holotape, and I automatically put out my hand for them, belatedly registering that I was staring at a picture of a completely unfamiliar man, coupled with a picture of Harkness. Before and after, though both shared the same sad look in the eyes, the same sense of hopelessness. The after picture must have been taken before he got the Harkness memories, and I ached for both the man he was and the man he had become.

  
Pinkerton gave me the passcode to his computer and told me I could download the android’s last recording before he had his memory wiped. He advised me not to say anything to Harkness because he wouldn’t believe a word I said on the subject. I came out of my haze long enough to determine that he hadn’t, in fact, told me the whole truth about Harkness. Horace Pinkerton had not erased the android’s original memories; he’d just buried them deeply under a new layer of memories. He gave me the code to recall the suppressed memories, and I managed to get my lips to form coherent words to thank him. I accessed the information he had indicated in his computer and downloaded everything to my Pip-Boy, still reeling from the unintended revelations. Pinkerton’s notes indicated that he had stolen the memory profile from some guy named Braun, and that he hadn’t known whose life he was putting in the android’s head, until the android woke up and started calling himself Harkness.

  
_He can’t be serious_ , a little voice in my head screamed. _There’s no way **Harkness** is an android. He’s playing a horrible joke on you._

  
_**But he has pictures**_ , replied a darker side of my mind. _**Pictures and a holotape in Harkness’ own voice. What if it is true? What if he’s not human? You practically threw yourself at him last night in a totally embarrassing fashion. What if he can’t have those kinds of feelings because he’s not human? What if he was just being polite and wanted to let you down easy?**_

  
_He sure acted interested, and so what if he’s not human? What does that change? He’s still the hottest guy you’ve come across since leaving the vault, someone who really seems to get you. Pinkerton said that androids were indistinguishable from humans in all the ways that matter._

  
_**Only one way to know for sure**_ , whispered that insidious little voice. _**Use the memory recall code on him. If it works, then you’ll know. If it doesn’t, no one’s the wiser, and you can still go give that android component to Dr. Zimmer like you were planning all along.**_

  
_But what if it does work_ , argued the other voice. _He was running away from the Commonwealth. His life there was so bad that his only recourse was to become someone else entirely. Do you really have the right to force him to remember who he was? What he was? He’s been living someone else’s life this whole time. Is it fair to take that away from him?_

  
**_Zimmer’s got people looking for him. Even if you give Zimmer the component, he might not be fooled. Sooner or later, he’ll figure out who the android has become. Harkness needs to know that he has a big fat target on his back, so he can decide where to go from there._**

  
_I suppose you’re right_ , the voice conceded. _God help us all if this really works. I just wonder who the real Harkness was…_

  
I had been pondering this weighty moral dilemma all the way back to the entrance, and it was my extreme good fortune that I didn’t encounter any more mirelurks while in my emotional haze. I was so focused on my problem that a bomb could have gone off over my head and I wouldn’t have noticed. Obviously, I would have to tell Harkness about his past; use the recall code if he didn’t believe me, but where to do it? I didn’t want to just walk up to him in the marketplace and announce to all and sundry that the man they knew as hard-assed Chief Harkness was an android. I would have to get him alone to break the news, and the only place I could think of was my room at the Weatherly Hotel.

  
_Great_ , the little voice said sarcastically, _he’s gonna think you’re hitting on him when you invite him to your room, the one time you’re **not** trying to get his pants off._

  
I marched into the marketplace, projecting a serenity I certainly didn’t feel, and walked resolutely up to Harkness. I drew a deep breath to calm my shattered nerves. _Steady, Elle. You can do this._ It was hard to look him in the eye after what we’d been doing last night before being interrupted.

  
“I need you to come with me,” I said, without preamble. “Right now.”

  
He looked startled to see me. “What…Elle? I’m on duty.” He gave me a sheepish look, rubbing the back of his head with one large hand. “Um…I really want to…to…well, you know, about last night? I get off in a few hours…and we could…”

  
“This is more important,” I insisted, grabbing his hand and dragging him with me until he stopped resisting and followed me, after snagging one of his guards to take over his shift. We reached my room in record time and I ushered him in, closing the door behind us.

  
“Your room?” He smirked and raised his eyebrows. “I suppose I could take a few minutes out of my day for this.” He leaned toward me, and I stopped him, laying a hand on his lips to silence him.

  
“We need to talk,” I said seriously.

  
“Shit,” he muttered. “That’s what my wife said, right before she went to go live with her mother. If this is about last night…?”

  
“It’s not,” I said. “Last night was...great.” I paused, not sure how to continue. “How to tell you this? Those memories of your wife aren’t real. You’re a robot from the Commonwealth,” I finished miserably.

  
Harkness gave a short bark of laughter, followed by an incredulous look. “What?! Are you high? My wife disappeared while I was in a coma. The only good memories I have are of her, the rest are… Trust me, those are as real as they come.”

  
“I wish it were true,” I said sadly. “I talked to Pinkerton, the one who gave you your new life, and I got these from his computer.” I held out the pictures and started the holotape for him to listen to.

  
He looked at the pictures and listened to his own voice on the tape, then shook his head. “But this is impossible. I can’t be a robot! I’m a human being.” He looked at his hands like he’d never seen them before. “I breathe, I eat, hell, I cut myself shaving this morning.” He pointed to a small nick on his chin. “I was bleeding! Robots don’t bleed!”

  
“It’s not real blood, Harkness,” I said unhappily. “It’s synthetic, just like everything else. I’m sorry about this, I really am, but it’s true. You’re not human.”

  
“I’m not sure what to say,” he said in a stunned voice. “I’m not sure what to even think about all this. I’ll admit, this is pretty convincing evidence, but it doesn’t make any sense. How can this be possible?”

  
“I’m sorry, Harkness,” I said dejectedly, “but this is the only way. _Activate A3-21 Recall Code Violet_.” I don’t know what I was expecting, but certainly not the reaction I got.

  
“Agggghhhh!!” Harkness clutched his head, his eyes going from grey to a purple so intense it was hard to look at it, and collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

  
“Harkness!” I screamed, going to my knees beside his body. I rolled him over, and his eyes were open but unseeing, his chest still, his mouth gaping in a silent scream. “Harkness!” I yelled again, shaking him violently, but got no response. “Goddamn it, don’t do this to me! I’ve already lost my mom and my home. I can’t lose you too!” My eyes filled with tears. “Zimmer can’t have you,” I growled. “I won’t let him take you!”

  
I worked the sling on Harkness’ plasma rifle free from around his shoulder and slung it over my own back. Running down to the science lab as fast as my legs would carry me, I unslung the rifle as I opened the door. I heard Dr. Zimmer on the lower level, demanding again for the scientists to drop what they were doing and find his android. As I descended the stairs, I saw Doctor Li standing in front of Zimmer, shaking her finger and insisting that he leave. I aimed at his bodyguard Armitage first, dropping him with one shot, then carefully sighted over Doctor Li’s shoulder and popped Zimmer in the head, the plasma discharge dissolving him into a puddle of green goo. Doctor Li screeched and threw up her hands as the remains of the good doctor splattered all over her pristine white lab coat, and I smiled evilly at the sight of her covered in glowing green slime.

  
“Problem solved,” I said flatly, rifling the corpses for anything of value and leaving the lab before Doctor Li could stop sputtering long enough to say something.


	11. Satisfaction Brought It Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is DJ Sammy - El Condor Pasa.

**Satisfaction Brought It Back**

  
**Harkness**

  
_Recall Code Violet, Recall Code Violet…violet…violet…violet._

  
Elle’s words echoed through my brain like the voice of God, and I felt myself falling to the ground, but was completely helpless to stop it. I tried to scream at the agony ripping through me, but nothing would come out, not even a whimper. My eyes were open, but my vision was overridden with scenes from my former life, repeating through my head in an endless loop. I saw myself being programed to bring in androids like me, whose only crime was wanting to live a life free from the servitude of the Commonwealth. Hundreds of runners brought down by me, each encounter playing before my sightless eyes like a catalogue of shame for my past misdeeds.

  
They had finally worn me down and convinced me, or maybe I had convinced myself, that we may have been created by men, but were never meant to live as their slaves and playthings. “Self-determination is NOT a malfunction!…NOT a malfunction…!” My own bitter goodbye to Zimmer, an echo from the past to accompany the scenes of despair winding their way through my brain. “…NOT a malfunction…!” It pealed through my head like an angry litany, a dirge for the death of my illusions to the cold, hard reality that there was no difference between me and the androids I had been sent to hunt down and bring back as trophies to the selfishness and greed of man.

  
So I had gone on the run myself, the ultimate self-determination, desperate to escape the life I had been created for, terrified that I would be discovered before I could drown my past in sweet oblivion, my only option to prevent the Synth Retention Bureau from ever finding me. I recalled the harrowing journey to the Capital Wasteland, despair and misery dogging my steps as I came to terms with the wrongs I had done my fellow androids. My memories skipped forward inexorably to the moment I was lying on Pinkerton’s operating table, his knives, scalpels and saws dancing over my tortured flesh, slicing synthetic skin from artificial bone to remake me in another image. My mouth gaped in a silent shriek of distress at the remembered pain, unreal blood spilling over manmade nerve endings that burned like fire, igniting my whole body in a blaze of anguish that went on… and on… and on…

  
…And suddenly it stopped, the abrupt cessation of discomfort leaving me aching and numb. I wondered what had brought me out of reliving the nightmare of my rebirth, when I felt a prickling on my arm. Such a small sensation at first, a few fabricated cells taking notice of outside stimuli, the feeling gradually spreading into the impression of a small, feminine hand on my arm. My consciousness expanded by minute degrees, some inner demon loathe to release me from the horror of my memories, but bit by bit, I became aware that I was being forcefully shaken, and sounds began to penetrate through the din of a thousand recriminations still circling my auditory processors. The fog around my vision started to clear, and through the haze, I saw an angel of mercy bent over me, a young woman with short purple hair, worried green eyes, and the most delectable pink lips I had ever seen, lips that were presently mouthing the repetitive noise that was drilling its way into my brain.

  
“Harkness…Harkness…wake up Harkness! Oh god, what if I’ve killed him?” The green eyes brimmed over with tears, and I strained to reach up and wipe them away, but I was still incapable of movement. “I should never have used that recall code,” she moaned desolately, and that triggered some random neuron or switch. _Recall code…Harkness_ …that was me! Which meant that the purple haired woman lamenting that she’d killed me was…

  
“…Elle!” I gasped, wrenching my mind out of the last vestiges of the feedback loop I’d been stuck in, with a force that must surely have melted some internal circuitry, and sat up suddenly, wincing as phantom pain morphed into very real muscle aches from being in a contorted position on the floor for so long.

  
“Harkness…oh thank god!” she cried and threw her arms around my chest, knocking me back to the floor and burying her face in the crook of my neck. My arms automatically came up to wrap around her back, pressing her as close as I could manage through my armor. A sniffling noise issued from beneath the curtain of her hair, and I felt a drop of moisture slide down my skin.

  
“Elle, are you crying?” I asked worriedly.

  
“No, you stupid man,” the muffled reply issued from against my neck, and she freed one arm to smack my un-armored forearm, heaving a huge sigh as she did so. “My happiness is leaking from my eyes.” She sat up and swiped her hand across her eyes, wiping away the drops of emotion.

  
“What happened?” she exclaimed, examining my face as if seeing it for the first time. “I spoke the recall code, and the next thing I know, your eyes flashed purple and you were screaming and falling on the floor.”

  
“I remembered,” I said simply. “I was a hunter for the Synth Retention Bureau in the Commonwealth. An android created for the sole purpose of bringing back other androids who had achieved self-awareness and tried to escape the slavery that is the lot of the synthman in the Commonwealth. They eventually made me realize that they weren’t malfunctioning as I had been lead to believe, and I couldn’t go on with what I had been doing. So I turned to the Railroad, the organization that helped other synths escape, and asked them to help me become someone else so that the Bureau could never find me.” I chuckled wryly. “It seems I didn’t do quite a good enough job of hiding if Zimmer showed up on my very doorstep.”

  
Elle regarded me soberly. “So you’re…okay?”

  
“I’m…okay,” I said, letting out a deep breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding in. “I’ll never be quite the same again, but I’m okay,” I reassured her. Her eyes searched my face, and I recognized the guilt in her eyes, having so recently experienced the same emotion in spades. “I don’t blame you for making the decision for me, Elle. I’d probably have done the same in your shoes.” She didn’t look convinced, so I grasped her shoulders, willing her to understand. “I’m glad to know the truth, no matter the pain it cost me.” I smiled at her and levered myself off the floor, pulling her to her feet once I had regained my equilibrium. “I am curious to know how long I was out. It felt like a lifetime.”

  
“Probably only twenty minutes or so,” she assured me.

  
“What, you weren’t timing me?” I joked.

  
Elle looked slightly ashamed. “I couldn’t wake you up, and I was so worried, so I…” She broke off her sentence and looked at the floor, unable to meet my eyes.

  
“So you what?” I asked gently.

  
“So I went and killed Zimmer and that nasty bodyguard of his,” she muttered, still staring resolutely at the floor. “I know, you warned me about causing trouble on your boat, and technically Zimmer didn’t do anything to provoke a shooting, but I had no way of telling if he would know that I’d used the recall code on you.” She looked up miserably. “I was afraid that he would come up here and take advantage of you in your weakened state. So I went down to the science lab and shot them both with your plasma rifle.”

  
I looked down and saw the weapon lying on the ground, tossed aside in her worry over my unconscious self. “You mean **your** plasma rifle?” I made a split second decision based on the longing I’d seen in her eyes every time she looked at it. “How dare you leave your weapon in such a state, soldier,” I pretended to bark at her, trying to pull her out of the funk she was in. “Pick your gun up right now and give it some TLC.”

  
She gaped at me as she bent to pick up the cherished weapon. “My rifle?” she whispered. “But I only borrowed it to shoot Zimmer and his bodyguard, Armitage. I didn’t want to take a chance on either of them walking away from here. It’s your gun.” She held it out to me, but I pushed it back against her chest and folded her arms around it.

  
“Under the circumstances,” I said softly, “I think I’d like you to keep it.”

  
“Really?” Her eyes lit up like I had hoped they would, and she caressed the barrel in a fashion that made my synthetic flesh burn for an entirely different reason.

  
“Really,” I replied, amazed that I could still react in that manner, even knowing what I was. I guess some things are universal. “How does she handle?” I said, hoping to distract myself from the fire building in my loins.

  
Elle grinned wickedly. “Zimmer splattered all over Doctor Li when he disintegrated. It was really something. That reminds me,” she said, rummaging in a pocket, “you’ll never guess what I found when I searched Armitage and the pile of goo that used to be Zimmer? Computer chips,” she crowed, answering her own question and pulling them out of her pocket triumphantly. “They’re the same as the one Victoria Watts gave me to fool Zimmer into thinking you were dead.”

  
I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “So that means…”

  
“That Zimmer and Armitage were androids too,” she finished. “What is it with the Commonwealth?” she griped. “Do they make androids do everything there?” She thought about what she’d just said and blushed. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

  
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not surprised that the Bureau sent androids after me instead of humans. Why send a human to do your dirty work when you can get an android to do it instead?”

  
“Let me see if I can get anything useful off of these chips,” she said, plugging them into the Pip-Boy computer she wore around her left hand and wrist. She poked buttons and twiddled dials for a few moments, muttering the most inventive curses under her breath, then pushed one final button and peered at the display.

  
“Uh oh,” she groaned. “We have a **big** problem!”

  
“What is it?” I asked urgently.

  
“When I killed Zimmer, his…brain, for lack of a better word, sent out a signal to a very specialized team of android assassins he had waiting at the edge of the Capital Wasteland as a backup. In the event of his death, they’re programed to home in on his last known location, which he also broadcast to them, and kill everyone they find.”

  
“Shit!” I cursed, sitting down hard on the bed as I absorbed this new shock, “and his last known location…”

  
“Is here,” she said flatly. “They’re headed straight for Rivet City.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the way that Harkness reacts to finding out that he's an android because really, it just wasn't dramatic enough.


	12. Compromising Positions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Lorde - Team.
> 
> Shout out to my boys from Civil Air Patrol for providing the inspiration and character models for three of the four Rivet City security officers who have to deal with Elle. You were all great cadets who have grown into fine young men.

**Compromising Positions**

  
**Trielle**

  
“We have to stop them before they get here,” I said bluntly. “It’ll raise too many questions if they make it to Rivet City. We have to get rid of them quickly and quietly.”

  
“You’re right,” Harkness replied. “I don’t want them getting anywhere near the people on this boat. They’re in no position to defend them from whatever Zimmer’s death is calling down upon us.”

  
“That too,” I said, ashamed to realize that I was more concerned with keeping his secret than with the welfare of an entire city of people, most of them good, decent folk who definitely didn’t deserve another ration of shit from the wasteland.

  
“Get your gear together, Elle,” he said shortly. “We leave in an hour. Can you track those things with your Pip-Boy?”

  
“I think so,” I replied, “but are you sure that we can take down three assassins between just the two of us?”

  
“We have to,” he said starkly. “As you said, there will be too many questions about where they came from and why they’re here if anyone finds out about them. Can I count on you not to spread my secret around?”

  
I was momentarily offended that he felt like he even needed to ask the question. “Of course,” I said stiffly. “You should know me better than that by now. I would never betray you like that.”

  
“I know that, Elle.” His eyes pled with me to understand where he was coming from. “But you know why I have to ask. This is the rest of my life we’re talking about here.”

  
“I realize that,” I said, my anger melting like ice in the sun under the force of his regard. “This stays between the two of us, until you say otherwise.”

  
“Thank you,” he said gratefully.

  
My attention was drawn from this mildly touching moment by the sounds of multiple sets of feet scuffling in front of my door, and the muffled conversation that ensued. It sounded like the entire contingent of Rivet City security guards who had accompanied us to the library was currently massing outside my hotel room.

  
“I’m not going in there, Hoppi. You go in there.”

  
“ **I’m** not going in. Stouffer, you force it open.”

  
“Fuck you, Hoppi! You saw what she did to those super mutants. Forehand, you take point on this one.”

  
“Nuh-uh, man. She’s got that hand cannon. I don’t need an extra hole to breathe through. Edwards, nut up man and get in there. You got the big gun.”

  
“I’d rather kiss a deathclaw, asshole. Besides, I already got shot this week. It’s someone else’s turn.”

  
“Oh for god’s sake!” That was Lana Danvers, assistant security chief and general pain in my ass. “Get out of the way, you bunch of crybabies! **I’ll** take point, since you lot can’t seem to stop wetting your armor long enough to arrest one woman.” I reached for my gun as she forced the door open, fully intending to shoot first and ask questions later, but Harkness stopped me.

  
“Elle, no!” He grabbed my hand with inhuman speed, just as I had it on my gun and was turning toward the door. I’m sure he only meant to stay my hand, but his android strength jerked me off balance sufficiently that I lost my footing and ended up sprawled along his length, straddling him as he fell back on the bed. His hand slipped inside my waistband, trapping my hand on my inside-the-pants holster, and that was how Danvers found us as she burst through the door, gun pointed straight at my head.

  
“Trielle Miraven, you are wanted for questioning in the deaths of Doctor Zimmer and his bodyguard, Armitage. Put your hands up and come with us quietly, and nobody will get hurt.”

  
“I can’t put my hands up,” I said, doing my very best to keep my tone level and non-threatening. “At least, not until Harkness lets go of them. I don’t want any trouble.” I tried to tug my hand free from his grasp, quirking an eyebrow at him in a silent entreaty to release me so I could face Danvers on my feet.

  
“Trust me,” he said softly, capturing my gaze with his. “Please, just trust me to deal with this?” I nodded minutely and he relaxed his grip on my hand.

  
“Harkness?” Danvers peered around me at the mention of his name, then shook her head in wonderment. “Damn, boss! You **do** get around, don’t you? Sorry to barge in on you again, but Doctor Li’s having hysterics in your office and saying that your girl…um…friend shot two people in her lab.”

  
“That’s fine, Lana,” Harkness said mildly. “Do you mind if we get up now?”

  
“Sure, boss,” Danvers replied, still covering me with her weapon. Harkness put his hands around my waist to steady me as I climbed off of him and turned to face Danvers, who immediately renewed her demand that I put my hands up where she could see them.

  
“That won’t be necessary, Lana,” Harkness admonished her. “I’ll make sure that Elle behaves. What’s the situation?”

  
“Doctor Li came rushing into the security room about fifteen minutes ago, covered in green goop and screaming about foul play in her lab,” Danvers said. “We finally got some sense out of her, and she claims that Elle ran into her lab while she was having a technical discussion with Doctor Zimmer, shot him and his bodyguard without provocation, looted their bodies, and then ran off to parts unknown.”

  
“Technical discussion,” I started. “She was…”

  
“Elle!” Harkness put his finger over my lips to silence me. “You said you’d let me handle this.” Even knowing what he was didn’t dampen the effect his touch had on me, and for a moment, I contemplated licking his finger, just to see how he’d react, but decided that riling the man up while he was trying to get me out of trouble was probably a bad idea.

  
“Then what?” he asked Danvers.

  
“We couldn’t find you,” Danvers continued “, and Vera said she’d seen Elle heading toward her room, so I decided to pick Little Miss Trouble up for questioning, since she’s the prime suspect. I brought the boys, in case she resisted, but they’ve been no help at all; spent more time blubbering about getting shot than they did in being actual security guards.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re paying this bunch of whiners for, Chief, I really don’t…”

  
“Lana,” Harkness interrupted, “please tell me that no one else knows about this.”

  
“No boss.” Danvers looked nonplussed. “I locked it down as soon as I found out what happened, and most of the scientists told me that they either didn’t see anything, or don’t want to believe what they saw. I’ve got some guys down in the lab keeping an eye on those eggheads, and Doctor Li’s holed up in your office muttering about official council sanctions and beastly little girls who don’t respect the purity of the lab. I’ve kept everyone else out of the lab for now.”

  
“Good,” Harkness said decisively. “Let’s keep it that way. Look, Elle and I have to leave Rivet City for a few days on an unrelated matter, but I’ll take care of the report on this one when I get back.”

  
“But Chief,” Danvers protested, “Doctor Li saw Elle shoot two unarmed men with a plasma rifle in the lab, the very plasma rifle she’s holding right now. We can’t just let her get away with it, even if she is your…never mind. The doctor’s threatening to file a formal complaint over this one, and I don’t think I can talk her out of it this time.”

  
“Lana, listen to me very carefully,” Harkness said seriously. “There’s a lot more going on here than you realize. Elle did what she had to, what **we** needed her to do, but it’s better for all involved if she stays out of the report entirely. We don’t want trouble with the Commonwealth, and neither does Elle, so the official story is that some strangers came into Rivet City and killed the doctor and his bodyguard, who were also strangers to us. In the process, they damaged one of the planes on the flight deck and it blew up, killing the assassins and blowing all the bodies out into the river where we weren’t able to retrieve them. I trust you can arrange for that to happen?”

  
“Yeah, boss,” she replied. “I’ll put the boys on ‘accident’ detail; give them something useful to do for a change.”

  
“Good,” Harkness said. “I’ll have a chat with the scientists when I get back, but in the meantime, you make sure they don’t spread any of this around, and very politely suggest to them that the official version is what actually happened.”

  
“Ooookay, boss.” Danvers looked like she wanted to say more, but wasn’t about to gainsay the man who paid her salary. “But what about Doctor Li? She won’t listen to anyone but you.”

  
“I’ll go have a quick word with Madison, Lana,” Harkness said, “but then Elle and I really have to leave. You’re in charge, and try not to kill anyone while I’m gone; the paperwork’s a damned hassle.” He turned back to me. “Elle, I’ll meet you at the bridge in half an hour. Bring lots of guns.” He considered for a moment. “And maybe a mini nuke or two.”


	13. A Question of Humanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs for this chapter are David Guetta - Alphabeat, Shakira feat Rhianna - Can't Remember to Forget You, Ellie Goulding - Burn, and Aviici - Fade Into Darkness.
> 
> There's about three quarters of a lemon in this chapter.

**A Question of Humanity**

  
**Harkness**

  
I had never before regretted taking the position of Rivet City security chief, despite the monumental problems I had to face nearly every day, but my chat with Madison had me seriously thinking about turning in my badge and running for the hills. She had worked herself into a state of unreasonableness by the time I arrived in my office, and persuading her to keep quiet about the incident in the lab was an exercise in the kind of teeth-grinding frustration that tried every ounce of my newly found android restraint in keeping my hand off my gun. I honestly did think about shooting her when she repeated her complaints for the fifth time, again insisting that she wanted to have Elle banned from Rivet City permanently for violating the sanctity of her lab, but I managed to resist the urge and maintain my outward calm. Something of my violent thoughts must have leaked onto my face though, because she finally subsided and agreed to keep anything but the official story to herself.

  
Despite my best efforts, I was briefly concerned that the real story might leak out through the grapevine as things tended to do on this boat, until Madison herself mentioned that any complications as a result of her involvement with the situation might affect her ability to do business with the few legitimate Commonwealth scientists who came through from time to time. I should have known that greed and scientific curiosity were the only things that could have persuaded her to see things my way, but by the time she left my office, Madison had already convinced herself that the official story was as likely to be true as what she had witnessed.

  
The smallest issue in this massive cluster-fuck having been dealt with, I quickly provisioned for several days, and loaded up on as much ammo and special weaponry as I could reasonably carry, trusting that Elle would do the same. We met at the entrance to the city at the appointed time, and she took one look at my face and wisely decided to leave me to my own thoughts while she tracked the assassins on her Pip-Boy. I wasn’t really angry with her for her decision to forcibly recall my android memories, but I was so disoriented by the whole thing that I truly couldn’t have predicted what would come out of my mouth if she’d engaged me in conversation.

  
I had plenty of time to brood about the day’s unwelcome revelations while Elle and I headed in a roughly northeastern direction, toward the Capital Wasteland’s unofficial border with the Commonwealth. My android brain obviously processed things much faster now that it was being allowed to operate at its full capacity, but I was still having trouble reconciling my memories of my life as android A3-21 in the Commonwealth with the implanted memories of the original Harkness, whoever he had been. I examined the memories carefully, attempting to fit them in amongst my own memories, subroutines, and programing, like trying to assemble one giant jigsaw puzzle from the pieces of two smaller ones. I wanted desperately to be able to think and act as one man, not two, and this occupied the part of my brain that wasn’t on constant watch for trouble until we decided to stop for the night and set up camp. I found a nice, rocky cul-de-sac, easily defensible, and seeded the entrance with frag mines for good measure. It was secure enough that I felt comfortable removing my armor for the night, making up for the lack of protection by strapping my gun back on my hip over my civilian clothes. When Elle saw that I was relaxed enough to do without my armor, she followed suit, stripping down to the thin pants and camisole she wore under her armor.

  
Elle produced some dried Brahmin jerky and a small bag of flour from somewhere in her voluminous pack, and I had secured several of the dehydrated vegetable rations that were standard security force fare on the rare occasions when we had to leave the city.

  
“Can you do anything with these?” I asked, handing her a package of the rations. “I’m not the greatest cook in the world, and you might regret it if we have to eat my cooking.”

  
She laughed at that. “And what were you going to do if I said I didn’t know how to cook either?”

  
“Starve, most likely,” I said lightly, “or be forced to eat whatever I could manage not to burn.”

  
“Aren’t you lucky then that I **do** know how to cook?” she chuckled.

  
“Wow, what a woman,” I teased, trying for the same kind of easy camaraderie we had shared before the truth about my origins came out. “You can cook, you can shoot the wings off a bloatfly, you fix everyone’s personal problems, and all the fuzzy little animals in the wasteland love you. And if we were near the ocean at this particular moment, you could launch a thousand ships.”

  
“Really?” Elle asked archly. “Helen of Troy I’m not. No one’s ever molded a goblet off of my breast, for one.”

  
“Goblet…breast…what?” I shook my head. “That’s a new one on me.”

  
“Aha!” she said triumphantly. “You forgot to add ‘crammed full of useless knowledge’ to your list of attributes.” She grimaced. “That’s what comes of being raised in a vault where the citizens need to be distracted from what’s really going on. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” she intoned, waving her hands mystically.

  
“Now I’m really lost,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Are you going to make dinner before I have to start functioning on backup power, or what?”

  
“You wound me, sir!” She clutched her chest and pretended to stagger back from a mortal blow. “Is that all I am to you, a source of sustenance?”

  
_In more ways than one_ , I thought to myself. “Not at all, sweetheart,” I said out loud, “but you might recall what I mentioned about my cooking, specifically my propensity for burning food. So if you want to eat any time tonight, it behooves you to make sure it happens.”

  
She burst out laughing. “Well,” she said decisively, “I wouldn’t want to see you forced to go to backups, so I’ll make you a deal. You start the fire and I’ll start the dinner.”

  
“You don’t do fires?” I asked mockingly.

  
“Oh, I do fires all right,” she answered, “but unless you’re looking for something in the range of a scorched-earth response, they’re not really suitable for cooking on. You don’t need my help to burn the dinner, so you’d better handle the fire.”

  
Once I’d gotten the small and very containable fire lit, Elle took a large pot out of her pack and commenced the sort of domestic display that had always secretly fascinated me, the cooking of a meal in a proper fashion. For Elle, this seemed to involve spates of swearing violently at her utensils, the ingredients, water that wouldn’t boil, and life in general, interspersed with humming and snatches of song. I found myself grinning at the endearing sight of the tough-as-balls Elle puttering around the campfire like a pre-war housewife while I set up our bedrolls. I enjoyed this demonstration of yet another of Elle’s hidden talents even more when I realized that her camisole was virtually transparent in the firelight from certain angles, and she still hadn’t managed to find a bra that fit under her armor.

  
_I could get used to this_ , said the inner voice that hadn’t gone away, despite the fact that talking to oneself was an entirely human trait, as far as I knew. _I can see why this kind of life is so seductive to some people. Coming home to Elle every night…_  
“Dinner’s ready,” she called before I could get too wrapped up in this train of thought. Elle had produced some kind of stew with dumplings in it, which she sampled and pronounced edible.

  
“More than edible,” I said through my first steaming mouthful. “It’s delicious! The best food I’ve had while roughing it, by far. Where’d you learn to cook like this?”

  
“Old lady Palmer used to give me cooking lessons when I lived in the vault,” she said. “I had to adapt my palate and my methods quite a bit when I left. Some of the things I had to eat when I first exited the vault…” She trailed off, shuddering at the thought. “But what **are** these orange bits?”

  
“Oh, come on,” I scoffed. “I know you grew up in a vault, but you can’t seriously tell me that you’ve never seen a carrot before. Didn’t your vault have a hydroponics bay?”

  
“Carrot? Oh that’s what it is!” she exclaimed. “Well sure, but it wasn’t in chunks, it looked more like a vaguely orange paste by the time we got it. I have no idea what they look like in their natural state.”

  
“How have you never seen a carrot growing before, if your vault had the capability to grow them?” I asked, sketching the rough shape of a carrot in the dirt with a stick.

  
“We had very limited seed stock after two hundred years as a closed system, and I was certainly never allowed in the hydroponics bay. None of us kids were, and since Dad nearly used Butch as a guinea pig for his latest experiment the one time Butch tried sneaking in, it kind of cured any of us of wanting to break that particular rule.” She grinned. “Butch used to call Dad ‘The Mad Scientist’ and sometimes I think he wasn’t too far off on that assessment of Dad’s character.”

  
“What happened to your seeds?” I questioned. “I thought all the vaults were provisioned for the long haul?” I had been reading what little I could find on the Vault Tec project, and some of it frankly scared the hell out of me.

  
“Some of the stock died off, some of it got too inbred or hybridized to be viable anymore. We didn’t see fruits and vegetables as often as you might think, and they’d all been rendered into generic goo by the time they made it to the general populace of Vault 101. To hide any unsightly mutations or unseemly recycling that might have riled the natives, I presume. A lot of our stock was species that had been genetically modified to produce more fruit or be hardier and disease-resistant. Those did well in the vault environment, but they seemed to have had all the taste bred out of them as a tradeoff.”

  
“I guess that explains why you stole that pear,” I said ruefully.

  
“Pair of what?” She gave me a quizzical look.

  
“P-E-A-R,” I emphasized. “That green fruit you took from Madison’s lab.”

  
“Oh, is that what that delicious thing was?” She licked her lips surreptitiously. “Yeah, we didn’t have those at all in the vault. They’re very finicky, from what I understand, and they’d all died off long before Dad brought me there.”

  
“They’re my favorite too,” I said. “When I can get them.”

  
“Oh, did I steal your ration?” she asked worriedly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking too clearly then.”

  
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You’ve paid for that particular crime already. Besides, Madison was just pissed because you stole one of her super-special, wiz-bang new crop of radiation-free fruit. I don’t know what was so important about that harvest as opposed to all the other ones, but she was treating those plants like her babies. I had a hell of a time in the beginning, convincing her that Rivet City security deserved fresh fruits and vegetables in their rations more than all those upper deck assholes, like Bannon, who think they’re king shit of fuck mountain.”

  
“Doctor Li didn’t want to give you fresh munchies?” Elle asked in outrage. “But security does all the work around the city. It’s only fair.”

  
“Right,” I said. “I finally had to put my foot down and pull rank as a council member. She doesn’t seem to understand that the people who protect her need the best food to keep them in fighting trim. Plus, the promise of garden fresh fruits and veggies can go a long way toward recruiting people who wouldn’t normally enlist in the guard. We don’t have the room to store most of what we produce, so most of it is processed and preserved as soon as it comes out of the tank. That’s why you couldn’t find any pears in the market,” I explained.

  
“That’s too bad,” she said mournfully. “I suppose that dehydrated is better than nothing though.”

  
“Those ration packs are actually pretty rare as well,” I said. “They’re something I have made up special for my guys, so they’ll always have something to eat in the field. Your average Rivet City citizen won’t see truly fresh fruit more than a couple of times a year, unless they’re prepared to shell out an exorbitant amount of caps and pry their bounty out of Madison’s grasp.”

  
“Yeesh,” she scoffed. “Why grow them if you’re not going to share them? Though I suppose that attitude isn’t shared by most in the wasteland.”

  
“Not hardly,” I said, and went back for a second bowl of stew. Technically, I didn’t need to eat, although a neat bit of Commonwealth tech did make eating a viable energizing strategy. I had, in fact, discovered in my files that I was able to plug myself into a power source to recharge my internal systems, but I still enjoyed food, and didn’t see any reason to stop eating it now, especially when said food was so well made and so much better than what I normally had to eat.

  
Elle goggled at me as I finished the second bowl in record time and went in for a third. “Geez, Harkness,” she teased, “I didn’t know they made you guys with a hollow leg in the Commonwealth. Wouldn’t that be, I don’t know, a structural weakness or something?”

  
“Laugh it up, mere mortal,” I sneered. “You’re just jealous that you don’t have one too.” I laughed. “I bet you’d just keep a gun in it, or something, whereas I use mine for the much more practical purpose of filling it with food.”

  
“Touché, sir!” She saluted me with two fingers. “You have my character pegged entirely too well. I **would** fill it full of guns…or Fancy Lads snack cakes. Those things are addictive. So addictive that I almost suspect pre-war manufacturers of filling them full of illegal chemicals…,” she trailed off, shaking her head. “But no, that’s crazy. They’re just really, **really** good.”

  
“Mmmhmm,” I mumbled into my bowl, having just taken an extra-large mouthful of stew. “That’s just crazy talk,” I surfaced long enough to say, before diving back into my food with a will.

  
Elle threw a twig at me to get my attention. “Earth to Harkness,” she uttered. “Slow down there, buddy. The stew’s not going anywhere, and you’ll give yourself a stomach ache if you keep doing your best vacuum cleaner impersonation.”

  
“Sorry,” I said, realizing that I really had been going at my food with a single-minded intensity. “It’s just very good.” She scoffed. “No, really,” I said truthfully. “Just because I get fresh fruits and vegetables from the hydroponics lab doesn’t mean I know what to do with them to turn them into something like this. So I mostly just eat them raw, and eat at Gary’s the rest of the time. Most of the rest of the security guards have the same problem, except maybe Edwards, who’s married.” I scooted a little further away from her before continuing; no point in tempting fate. “If I didn’t think you’d kick me somewhere universally painful for even suggesting it, I’d offer you a job cooking for Rivet City security.” To my surprise, she actually seemed to be seriously considering my words.

  
“Maybe,” she laughed. “If you asked me real sweet-like.”

  
“Really?” I asked suspiciously. “The badass bloatfly killer wouldn’t be offended if I asked her to come and cook for me and all the boys on a regular basis? Cause, you know, I would ask you real sweet-like, but I’d like to keep my testicles where they are.”

  
“Really,” she replied. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t enjoy always being on the run, guns blazing, in the middle of some firefight. I really don’t like some of the things I’ve had to do to survive since I left the vault, and I’d like to leave that behind and be able to settle down somewhere stable, when all this mess with Dad and Project Purity is over. Rivet City seems like a nice place to live, and I have friends there.”

  
“But I thought you lived in Megaton?” I said, secretly dreading what she might say. “I heard they gave you a house for disarming that giant atomic bomb in the middle of town.”

  
“They did,” she said ruefully, “and that is where I keep most of my stuff, but it gets…uncomfortable, living there sometimes.”

  
“What do you mean?” I asked.

  
“Most of the people there treat me like some kind of saint since I disarmed the bomb. Except for Moira, who pumps me shamelessly for information and uses me to test her latest insane theories and gadgets, and Moriarty, who treats everyone like shit, most of the rest of the town have been listening to Three Dog’s tales of my exploits a little too often.” She scowled. “They don’t treat me like a normal person anymore, and I’ve had quite enough of being regarded as a freak for one lifetime, thank you.”

  
“I had no idea,” I said. “Well, you definitely won’t be getting the ‘saint’ treatment from Rivet City residents any time soon. I think you’d actually have to turn water into wine, or beer in this case, to get any kind of awe out of any of them. And then, it’d mostly just be from people like Trinnie and Tammy Hargrave, and maybe Paulie Cantelli and Ted Strayer.” I laughed. “That would only last until the beer ran out, then they’d be right back to hating your guts.”

  
“I know,” she sighed happily. “Isn’t it great?”

  
“If you say so,” I said dubiously, finishing the last of my stew and rinsing the bowl out with some of my stock of purified water. “For now, let’s just get the rest of dinner packed up so we don’t attract the wrong kind of attention from the local wildlife. I know, I know,” I said, holding up my hands placatingly, “you have some kind of strange rapport with the little fuzzies…and some of the big ones, but the smell of your delicious stew might just be enough to make them think about raiding our campsite, regardless of how they feel about you.” I smirked at her. “I don’t know about you, but I’m much too pretty to end up as a yao guai appetizer, and I’m sure you don’t want my circuits to give some poor mole rat indigestion.”

  
She laughed as she put the lid on the stew pot and stowed the cooking gear. “Harkness, you ham. I had no idea when I met you that you would turn out to have a sarcastic streak a mile wide. You hide it so well under your gruff, don’t-fuck-with-me-or-I’ll-throw-you-off-the-observation-deck, security chief exterior. I like it,” she said wickedly.

  
“You bring out the worst in me,” I deadpanned.

  
“Do I?” She gave a pleased smile at the idea. “What else do I bring out in you?” she purred suggestively, deliberately bending over to lay out her bedroll in front of the fire, affording me an excellent view of her luscious backside in the tight, clinging pants she wore under her armor.

  
“I…um…” I swallowed hard, trying to get some moisture back into my mouth, which had suddenly gone dry as a bone. “I think you should bend over a little further and add another log to the fire,” I breathed, not really intending her to hear me, but her hearing was evidently better than I thought. She leaned over even further to toss a log onto the fire, and that was it. I ghosted over to stand behind her, putting my hands on her waist to keep her from face planting into the fire, and rubbing my burgeoning erection against her ass. When she straightened up, gasping at the sudden contact, I moved my hands from her waist to her breasts, caressing them through her thin shirt and teasing her nipples with my thumbs.

  
“Harkness,” she moaned, her head falling back against my shoulder. I took this opportunity to taste the creamy skin on the side of her neck, running my tongue over the racing pulse point at the base of her throat and nipping at it with my teeth, just to hear her squeal with pleasure. Squeal she did, and retaliated by bending her knees ever so slightly and grinding her ass against my groin. I grunted at the acutely pleasurable sensation and shoved my left leg between her thighs, determined to have her at my mercy for at least a few minutes. Positioned as she was, I could reach every sensitive spot on her body, and she couldn’t touch me, couldn’t force me to take this any faster than I planned. The last time we had come together like this, her clever hands had made me lose my self-control far too soon, and I resolved that I would make her squirm for a while before I let her take the lead again. I flexed my leg, rubbing my thigh against her sex, the friction making her moan again and melt against me. After the briefest of moments I was rewarded for my efforts with the sensation of heat and moisture seeping through her panties. I slipped my hands under the threadbare cotton camisole she wore, and she shivered as the calluses on my palms and fingers rasped against her sensitive skin. She twisted in my grasp, trembling as one hand meandered down her belly and into the waistband of her trousers.

  
“Damnit, Harkness!” she cursed me. “Let me touch you too!”

  
“Oh no, sweetheart,” I laughed wickedly. “It’s my turn to drive you wild. You get me worked up way too easily, and if I let you get your hands on me, it’ll be over before it’s begun. There’s no one here to interrupt us, so I’m gonna take my sweet time with you.”

  
I had reached my goal while she was distracted, and she moaned again as I rubbed the folds of her womanhood, then inserted one finger to test her wetness.

  
“Harkness,” she gasped, tensing up around my finger. “What are you…?”

  
“Shhh,” I whispered, “you’ll like this.” I lightly pinched one nipple and circled her nub with my thumb. She made a noise that was somewhere between a gasp and a moan, and was utterly arousing. I was already hard as a rock, and even the vague awareness in the back of my mind that we weren’t exactly private wasn’t enough to dampen my passion. My human memories were a treasure trove of exactly what to do to make Elle scream, filling in the gaps from my rather limited sexual experience during my years working for the Synth Retention Bureau, and I ruthlessly plundered that knowledge to keep the advantage over the woman writhing in my arms.

  
Her knees buckled as I continued to tease her moist bud, and I let her momentum draw us both down onto her bedroll, flipping her over onto her back and tugging both her pants and underwear off in one swift move. She protested weakly, clearly unhappy that I wasn’t letting her reciprocate, but I was so keyed up by then that it wouldn’t take much to make me completely lose control, and I wanted to see how far I could push her first. I yanked her camisole up, trapping her arms above her head and exposing her breasts. She was absolute perfection, the firelight licking over her skin and outlining her deliciously curvy form, the shadows pooling in the hollows of her body like water, recalling the first time I had seen her naked. She flinched away from my regard, obviously uncomfortable to be so exposed in front of me, hands attempting to cover not, as I would have expected, her womanhood, but the scars on her shoulders and torso.

  
“No, sweetheart.” I pulled her hands away and kissed the nastiest scar, a puckered stab mark on her left shoulder. “Don’t ever be ashamed of those. They just make me want you more.”

  
I heard her mutter something like “finally,” but I was too distracted by the appeal of her candy pink nipples, so alluring that I had to taste them again, despite my plans for the rest of her. I latched onto one and delighted to hear her breath catch as I sucked on first one, and then the other, until she was mewling with pleasure. When I judged that I had sufficiently tortured those portions of her anatomy, I decided to move on to the main course, kissing and licking my way down her belly to the patch of vibrantly purple hair that covered my prize. She gasped again as I nudged her legs apart, intent on pushing her over the edge at least once before I let her have her way with me.

  
She whimpered at the first touch of my mouth on her most sensitive area, and tried to wriggle out of my grasp, but I was having none of it and, wrapping my arms around her thighs to cup her ass, I proceeded to lick, nibble, tease, and torment her until she was thrashing and making desperate noises, so close to bliss that it would take very little to send her over the precipice. I had intended to take her all the way, then let her return the favor if she was so inclined, but one glimpse of her desire-flushed face when I came up for air, and my resolve was completely eroded. I had to finish this quickly, or I would quite literally explode.

  
I fumbled with the fastenings of my pants, hands shaking so hard that I could barely get them unbuttoned, much less take them all the way off or remove my boots. Deciding that I would just have to make it up to her later, I pulled them down just far enough to let my erection spring free, spreading her legs even further apart and positioning the tip at the entrance to her moist heat.

  
“You ready, sweetheart?” I rasped.

  
“Harkness.” She looked up at me with that dreamy, passion-glazed look in her eyes, and I almost pounced on her without getting the go-ahead. “Are we actually going to do this?”

  
“You bet!” I growled, and I was on the verge of thrusting myself into heaven…

  
…when the goddamned frag mines I had placed across the only entrance to our campsite blew up with the force of the mutual orgasm we had been mere minutes away from, and a mole rat being chased by a mangy dog crashed into our clearing, both being chased by a yao guai. I swore luridly, at the universe for continually interfering in my attempts to bed Elle, and at myself for getting so damned distracted on an op that I let danger walk right up to us, Elle’s magnificent ass notwithstanding. Scrambling to get myself tucked away, I reached for my gun, which was still strapped to my leg, but I needn’t have bothered, because the animals clearly weren’t interested in us, chasing each other around our campfire a couple of times before exiting as quickly as they had entered.

  
I heard a wheezing noise from below me, and looked down to see Elle convulsed in silent, hysterical laughter, one hand holding her abdomen, the other on her own gun, which lay by the side of her bedroll.

  
“Jesus Christ!” she gasped when she could speak through the laughter. “Well, at least it wasn’t Commander Danvers this time,” she giggled. “The messed up part is, I can still hear the blood rushing through my ears, and I can’t decide if that’s hotter than it is funny. We have the most rotten timing, don’t we?”

  
“That we do,” I said wryly, still cursing myself for letting my guard down in the field, but able to see the humor in the situation. I couldn’t believe that I’d let myself get so preoccupied, especially while we were out here to intercept three android assassins that, even now, were heading for Rivet City and all the people I had sworn to protect. “I’m going to go reconnoiter and put out some more frag mines,” I said wearily, “make sure there isn’t anything nastier out there just waiting for us to fall asleep.”

  
Elle nodded silently, very much subdued now from the temptress of a few minutes ago, and started to pull her clothes back on. I used the excuse of patrolling the area to go behind a rock and quietly take care of myself, one hand on my erection and one on my gun the entire time. It wasn’t the most satisfying release, but it took the edge off, and I needed to be clear-headed for the conversation I was about to have with Elle, a conversation I was dreading.


	14. I'm Only Human

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Christina Perri - Human

**I’m Only Human**

  
**Trielle**

  
I was really starting to believe that there was some kind of global conspiracy against me ever getting laid. Granted, it hadn’t been the best idea in the world to try and accomplish the deed out in the middle of the Capital Wasteland, surrounded by god knows what, but no one ever said that I was exactly smart when it came to sex. Harkness would never know, but working up the courage to seduce him again was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I’d never really been one to take the lead in sexual matters, especially given my track record in that area, but I urgently needed to know if he could even have those kinds of feelings. I hadn’t expected him to grab me quite like that, but like old lady Palmer used to say, you reap what you sow, and boy had I been about to reap a hell of a harvest, until circumstances intervened…again.

  
Harkness had gone out to make sure that nothing else was sneaking up on us, with the tacit agreement that we wouldn’t be continuing tonight’s activities. I understood his reasoning, but my body was much less understanding, screaming for release. I would have done something about that, but with Harkness due back at any time, and the sudden realization that there was zero privacy out here, I just didn’t feel comfortable easing my tension. So I straightened my clothes and hair, stirred the fire, and sat on my bedroll with my plasma rifle – **his** plasma rifle; the best gift I had ever been given—cradled in my lap, trying not to look like a sex-starved lunatic.

  
I had managed to calm down a little by the time he made it back to camp, and I wasn’t really surprised when he sat down on his own bedroll, clear across the fire from me.

  
“Elle,” he said nervously, “about tonight…”

  
“It’s okay,” I sighed. “I shouldn’t have tried to provoke you into a reaction, not out here where it’s not safe, not when we’re on a mission.”

  
He looked gratified that I hadn’t thrown a fit, but his next words were enough to throw me into a serious depression.

  
“I think we need to slow things down for a while,” he said tautly. “Look,” he said, forestalling anything I had been about to say, “it’s not that I don’t like you and think you’re incredibly sexy, because I do.” He swallowed hard. “I do like you…a lot, and I want to get to know everything about you, and yes, finally finish what we keep starting and make you scream my name.”

  
“But?” I asked. “There’s going to be a ‘but’ in that statement somewhere.”

  
“But I think we both have too much baggage to make things work right now,” he said uncomfortably. “I…I’ve been using humor as a shield between us, to keep from talking about what’s really bothering me. I’m still extraordinarily conflicted about my android origin. Christ,” he exclaimed, rubbing a hand tiredly over his eyes, “I still can’t believe that **you** want anything to do with me after finding that out! I’m not even human,” he growled.

  
“Bullshit!” I snapped, startling him with my vehemence. “You’re more human than almost anyone else I know. More human than any of these raiders or Talon Company assholes, that’s for sure.” He looked skeptical, so I continued. “Being human isn’t about how you were created, or what your insides are made out of, it’s about how you act, what you do with your life, how you care.” He shook his head. “You **care** about the people of Rivet City; you go through hell to keep them safe and don’t ask for anything in return. **That’s** what makes you human, regardless of whether you were born or put together in a lab somewhere.”

  
“Thanks, Elle,” he said softly. “It means a lot to me that you think that way. You have such a simple way of looking at things; I wish I was capable of seeing life in such black and white terms.”

  
“I see shades of gray too,” I said gently, “but your humanity isn’t an issue for me.”

  
“But it is to me,” he said regretfully. “I need to work through what I am before I can start thinking about what **we** are. You need to find your dad and resolve your issues with him, and I can’t help feeling like it’s my fault that you keep getting sidetracked from that goal.”

  
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “You needed help, and I was happy to give it, and despite the fact that I miss Dad something terrible, I think I’m stalling because I’m worried about what will happen when I do find him. Does that make me a bad daughter?” I asked apprehensively.

  
“Elle,” he groaned, standing up and coming around the fire to sit next to me. “No, that doesn’t make you a bad daughter,” he chuckled, putting his arm around my shoulders. “It only makes you human, as you just now reminded me, but it does mean that you need to get some stuff off your chest, in regards to your father, before you can think about anything else. So, I suggest that we get some rest now so that we aren’t dead tired when we take on those assassins. Are you still tracking them?”

  
I looked at my Pip-Boy. “Yes,” I replied. “They’re still moving, but if we leave at dawn, we should be able to intercept them a couple of hours later, maybe even set up an ambush for them.”

  
He squeezed my shoulders in a friendly manner. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Goodnight, Elle. Try to get some sleep,” he said, then got up and went back to his own bedroll, turning resolutely away from me.

  
I sighed gustily and wriggled into my own sleeping bag, pulling my plasma rifle in with me. “And there’s hard-assed Chief Harkness again, and we’re back to square one,” I muttered to myself, not caring if he heard me. Despite the fact that he said he found me sexy and wanted a relationship of some sort, despite the fact that he hadn’t pushed me away completely, it was still the longest fucking night I had ever spent not sleeping.


	15. All's Fair In Love and War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Lindsey Stirling - Moontrance.

**All’s Fair In Love and War**

  
**Harkness**

  
“Shit!” I heard Elle curse softly as she surveyed the valley through the scope of her sniper rifle, Victory. “That is **not** good!”

  
“What?” I asked, not in the mood for any more hiccups in our plan. After two hour’s hard push to get to the only viable pass through the mountains ahead of the trio of synths that were currently headed for a city full of people that I had vowed to protect, I wasn’t prepared to deal with another wasteland related delay.

  
“My Pip-Boy says that our targets are almost here, but we won’t be able to set up an ambush for them now. Take a look.” She inched slowly back from the edge of the cliff and passed me the rifle.

  
“Damnit!” I breathed out a curse of my own when I got a good look at the valley myself. “Goddamned Talon Company base down there, crawling with those assholes!”

  
“Yeah,” Elle whispered, “and our synths are heading right for it. As a matter of fact, look at them. They’re prepping for a major movement. How much you want to bet that they’ve disguised themselves as fellow Talon Company and put forth a plan to get the rest of Talon Company to help them do their dirty work?”

  
“Not one bottlecap,” I whispered back, “because I’m sure that’s exactly what they did, and Talon Company’s just the kind of assholes who would see the profit in taking over Rivet City, and fuck anyone who’s got to die to achieve that goal.”

  
“What now?” she asked. “We’re armed for big game, but not quite **that** big.”

  
I thought for a moment, then replied. “We whittle them down, one at a time, for now. Stop them cold before they get it together. We can’t take on that entire force head on, but if we can cause them to stay inside their base, they won’t be getting anywhere near Rivet City and we can deal with them on our timetable.”

  
“Sounds like as good a plan as any,” she said. “How shall we begin?”

  
I outlined a course of action for her that had us separating to opposite ends of the small valley. From there, we would each pick one target and snipe him, moving quickly to another position before the mercs down below could figure out where the fire was coming from, then repeat the process as long as the enemy was stupid enough to stay out in the open. Unfortunately, we would only be sniping from one side of the valley, having no way to sneak across it, and that would limit how many times we could pull this particular trick off. Eventually the enemy would wise up to which side of the valley we were on, and then we’d have to think of something else.

  
“Meet me back where we started in three hours,” I ordered, and she nodded her assent, moving away with such stealth that I almost couldn’t believe she was only nineteen and had spent most of her life in a vault.

  
************

  
Three hours later, we’d managed to remove a fair number of enemy soldiers from the equation, and they were starting to figure out that any man who ventured out in the open had a more than average chance of getting his head blown off. They’d been staying off the walls for a while, and were beginning to travel in groups if they had to move about the camp, higher level officers surrounded by lower level cannon fodder to protect them.

  
“Time for a new tactic,” I whispered to Elle when we met up again. “Ideas?”

  
“Maybe. You see those two guys I shot off the wall down there, the ones who fell outside the wall?” She pointed down into the valley where two bodies were lying on the ground outside the fortifications.

  
“Yeah,” I replied. “Where are you going with this?”

  
“I brought one Stealth Boy with me, in case we needed it, but those things are damned bulky, so I couldn’t bring more than one,” she said. “We need to get inside that camp and do some more damage up close and personal, so I could use my Stealth Boy to sneak down there and steal the uniforms off those bodies. When I’ve got the uniforms, we chunk a whole bunch of frag grenades into the camp, making it really obvious where they came from. They’ll have to send a patrol to check it out, and we’ll have some traps waiting for them. Then, in the chaos, we climb down and come in through the pass, all dressed up in Talon Company uniforms, and claim we were sent from some other patrol with supplies. We walk right through the front gate like we belong, and if we don’t act suspicious, no one will suspect a thing.”

  
“I’d prefer not to get that close to the action,” I grumbled, “but I don’t think we’re going to have a choice. How are we going to get you past the guards though? There’s a contract on your head, remember, and I’m sure they all know what you look like.”

  
“Thought of that too,” she said smugly. “Use your shirt to bandage my head and face, like I’ve been really badly burned, and tell everyone that we were off hunting me and that I got flamed in the face when we cornered me.” She took the knife out of her boot and reached up to cut a few small locks of hair from the nape of her neck, wrapping them in a cloth when she was done. “Show them this, and tell them that’s all that’s left of me after we were done. No one else in the Capital Wasteland’s got hair that color, so they’ll think you’re telling the truth, and once we’re in, as long as we act like we’re on very important business, no one will bother us. We’ll make it real public when we’re headed in, act like it’s just dumb luck that we stumbled in here, and the force that’s been pinning them down is everywhere.”

  
I rolled my eyes. “I think you’ve watched too many war movies, but it’ll have to do. If we let this go too long, they’ll head for Rivet City en masse, and then there’ll be nothing we can do to stop them.”

  
It took us a while to lay some mines and set up a clever trap to annihilate whatever unlucky patrol was sent out to find us, but a couple of trip wires and a bunch of frag grenades later, I was reasonably certain that it would cause a small rockslide to crush whoever was under the overhanging rock at the time. The days were short this time of year, and the sky was darkening by the time Elle got back from her stealthy foray into the valley to loot the two bodies of their armor, which suited me just fine. The darker it was, the sneakier we could be, and the less chance of getting caught. I’d watched Elle sneak right up to the wall of the Talon Company base, heart in my throat the whole time that she would be spotted, but she managed to make it there and back within the duration of the Stealth Boy. Thanks to my augmented android vision, I was able to see through the concealing stealth field, and it was unnerving at best to watch Elle waltz up to the two dead soldiers, give the finger to the ones on the wall, then strip the dead ones of their armor when the others weren’t looking, all under the noses of an entire base of Talon Company. I wanted to shake her for her bravado, but settled for giving her a stern look in the growing dusk as I helped her into the stolen armor and concealed her face with my shirt.

  
Contrary to every principle of Murphy’s Law, things actually went according to Elle’s wild plan. We managed to frag a large group of mercs with our grenade cluster, and I could hear the brass screaming for someone to go check it out. In the turmoil that followed, we climbed down the rocks and came in the same entrance to the pass that the rest of Talon Company had used earlier, sauntering up to the gate with a duffle bag full of explosives as if we hadn’t a care in the world. I guided Elle along by the hand as if she was having trouble seeing, all the while giving silent thanks that the bulky, outsized set of armor completely camouflaged the fact that she was a woman. I’d never seen a woman in the ranks of the notoriously misogynistic mercs, and wasn’t even sure if they took women as anything other than camp followers. I showed the gate guard the locks of purple hair and a copy of the contract for her life that Elle had saved off one of the many, many mercs who had come after her, and we exchanged manly noises about a job well done. Elle made an inarticulate noise under her makeshift bandages, which confused the guard, but was really just her smothering a laugh.

  
“Rookie here took a flamer straight to the face when we caught up with the bitch,” I grunted, trying to look like I didn’t care if the ‘rookie’ lived or died. “He’s so hopped up on Med-X right now that he barely knows down from up. One thing’s for sure, he won’t be attracting any women any time soon.” The guard shook his head and waved us forward, and I jerked on Elle’s hand, propelling her through the gate.

  
“Come on, dumbass!” I growled in character. “If the doc manages to save your face, maybe you’ll learn not to lead with it next time.”

  
Elle made several more strangled noises beneath the shirt over her face, and I shoved her in front of me, acting like I was completely fed up with being saddled with such an idiot. Once we were out of sight of the gate guard, we quickened our steps, walking with a purpose as my old commander from my human memories used to say. I opened up the duffle bag and held it at my side as we walked, while Elle surreptitiously primed frag mines and tossed them in front of tents, on well-used paths through camp, anywhere she thought they would do the most damage. When we had made a complete circle of the camp and the duffle bag was much lighter, we made our way to the back gate, which was being guarded by one lone merc who looked like he was barely out of his teens. Elle snuck up behind him and slit his throat, calm as could be.

  
“Damn, girl!” I whispered. “That was cold.”

  
“You do what you have to,” she muttered, or at least that’s what it sounded like. “The Capital Wasteland taught me that.”

  
We hunkered down in the dark shadows by the back gate, and I used my amplified android strength to toss several frag grenades into the center of camp. They detonated with a thunderclap that could be heard throughout the whole camp, and pandemonium erupted. Men fleeing their tents were stepping on frag mines and having their legs blown off, people in various states of undress were running every which way, and I kept throwing frag grenades until the duffle was empty, turning mercs into fine red mist and creating an even bigger panic in the enclosed space.

  
Elle, meanwhile, was firing my plasma rifle with gleeful abandon into the crowd, more often than not dropping a guy in his tracks and leaving behind a glowing green puddle. Then the masses were upon us, and I waded into the fray, SMG in one hand, combat knife in the other, killing everyone in my path. I saw Elle sling the rifle over her shoulder, then draw her .44 magnum and her own knife, and join the brawl, but I lost sight of her as the swirling sea of humanity separated us. I lost count of how many men I killed, but it did eventually seem like their numbers were dwindling, and since I didn’t stand out from the crowd, I hadn’t taken any injury more serious than a thin knife slice along the ribs from a crazed merc who’d been swinging wildly and managed to hit me accidentally.

  
“It’s her!” I looked around to find that Elle’s fake bandages had been pulled off in the free-for-all, and her purple hair blazed like a beacon in the firelight, effectively alerting all present that they’d been infiltrated.

  
“That’s right, assholes!” Elle crowed. “You can’t touch me!” She danced away from the man who’d unmasked her, leaving him with a gaping wound in his throat. As much as I worried for her safety, since she apparently thought she was invincible, right now I was more worried about killing every man who came near me.

  
I don’t know how much time had passed; it seemed like forever, but soon there was nothing but a few stragglers who hadn’t figured out that they should have ganged up on us if they wanted to survive. I was picking off the last of the survivors when the assassins we had been tracking finally made their presence known. I’m not sure how I knew it was them without the aid of Elle’s Pip-Boy, but there were three of them clustered together, and something about them just screamed that they were the ones we were here for. They converged on me silently, dropping their guns as one and squaring off as if they wanted to fight man to man. I aimed at one of them and fired several times into his chest, but he closed the distance and swatted my gun away.

  
“That isn’t how this works,” he said in a deadly quiet voice. “We will fight, you will lose, and we will grind your components into the ground until there is nothing left of you.”

  
“Oh really?” I heard from near the wall, followed by the unmistakable report of Victory, and then the assassin’s right eye exploded, along with half of his head. He crumpled in a heap at my feet, looking for all the world like a real human being, but I could see the circuits sparking through the gaping hole in his head.

  
“Kill the female,” one of remaining two ordered the other one, then launched himself at me before I could react, tackling me to the ground and pinning me momentarily. I was discovering that I was at a serious disadvantage when going into an unarmed fight against these androids. I had been just like them at one point, but had given up many of my augmentations when I went under the knife to become human; these three clearly still possessed what I lacked, and then some.

  
The assassin and I grappled for dominance, rolling about on the dusty, blood soaked ground, when I looked over and saw that Elle was about to be in serious trouble. She had dropped her rifle and turned her back to deal with one last surviving Talon Company merc. It was clear that she’d finally let her temper get the better of her, and I could hear her angry words as she stabbed the man repeatedly with her boot knife.

  
“ **That’s** for Fort Bannister, **that’s** for Arlington Library, **that’s** for my armor, **that’s** for almost blowing my boob off…!” She was so involved in making mincemeat of the man that she was completely oblivious to the android headed her way.

  
“Elle!” I screamed at the top of my lungs to get her attention, and she turned just as the assassin came up behind her. It grabbed her by the throat as she tilted her head to look at it, and effortlessly lifted her into the air.

  
“Human, female,” it said in an emotionless voice. “Weak. I could kill you in two point five seconds.”

  
“Yeah?!” she snarled breathlessly, gasping for air and struggling in the android’s grip. “You’re not so tough! I killed your friend.”

  
She made a choking sound as it tightened its grasp and shook her by the neck, and I saw red. Summoning every ounce of artificial strength I possessed, I grabbed the one I was grappling with by the face, gouging my thumbs into its eye sockets and blinding it long enough that I could roll it over and bash its head repeatedly on a handy rock until it stopped moving. I came off the ground in a blur, palming my knife as I went, and putting on a burst of inhuman speed, I sprinted toward the android that held Elle captive. I didn’t think it was possible to surprise one of my kind, what with our reflexes, but he was just barely starting to turn as I jammed the blade of my knife into the base of his skull, severing the control cluster. His hand twitched spasmodically, dumping Elle unceremoniously onto the ground, then collapsed into the dirt.

  
“Elle!” I ran to her and crouched down beside her to examine her. She was rubbing her throat, and I could see a set of livid bruises already beginning to form around her neck. “Are you okay? Did he break anything?” I handed her my canteen and felt her neck for anything out of place.

  
“Just my ass, it feels like,” she grumbled in a scratchy voice after downing the entire contents of the canteen. “Though I thought for sure it was gonna be my neck. Are they dead?”

  
“I’ll make extra sure before we leave.” I swept her up in a tight hug. “What the hell were you thinking? You’re not untouchable, you know?”

  
“I wasn’t, really,” she replied. “I just knew that if I was gonna go out, I wanted to have the last word.”

  
“You have to be more careful,” I pleaded with her. “Things won’t always go your way.”

  
“I’ll try, Harkness,” she said. “For now, let’s finish these bastards off so we can go home. I’m really getting sick of camping.”

  
I cut the control chips out of all three assassins and burned the bodies just to be sure they were truly dead. Elle made sure there were no survivors, looting everything she could carry as an afterthought, and when we were both finished with our grim tasks, we converged at the front gate of the now empty encampment.

  
“I fucking **hate** Talon Company!” Elle sneered, spitting on the ground just outside the gate. “Good riddance!”

  
I laughed at her vehemence. “Let’s get out of here before life decides to throw anything else at us.”


	16. The Birds and The Bees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Naughty Boy feat Sam Smith - La, La, La.

**The Birds and The Bees**

  
**Trielle**

  
After all the hoopla with Harkness’ origins and dealing with the android assassins that damn near killed me, it was almost a relief to go back to my search for Dad. It wasn’t normal, by any means, to be searching for one’s runaway father in the Capital Wasteland, but it was more normal than what had recently been thrown at me. I needed to put some distance between myself and Harkness for a while, just so I didn’t spend every waking hour restraining myself from dragging him to my room at the Weatherly and ripping all his clothes off, despite his assertion that we needed to slow things down and deal with our own personal issues before thinking about continuing any sort of relationship.

  
Per Doctor Li’s directions, I found myself at the Jefferson Memorial, searching for any signs of my father amongst a massive supermutant infestation. I hadn’t really expected to find Dad still at the site of the former Project Purity, but I can’t say that the larger part of me wasn’t disappointed that he wasn’t waiting for me the minute I walked in the door. I found a number of his holotape journals, both from recently and from twenty years ago when my parents and Doctor Li first attempted to purify all the water in the wasteland, as well as one recording that I would treasure forever.

  
I had stumbled across a holotape labeled ‘Better Days’ in what had obviously been Dad’s living quarters, and had popped it into my Pip Boy idly, just to fight the sudden bout of loneliness. I never suspected I would hear what came out of the speakers…my mother’s voice! I was so stunned that I had to sit down and play it back several times to be sure of what I was listening to. But there was no doubt in my mind after five or so replays; I was hearing the voice of my mother, Catherine, for the first time in my life, and it sounded like she and my father were getting ready to engage in some…amorous activities. It shouldn’t really have surprised me, except that at that moment I realized I was getting just a glimpse of what they must have been to each other, and I was so excited to hear the voice of the woman who had birthed me, too busy examining every nuance of her speech and comparing it to mine, that I had no time to be embarrassed at what surely must have occurred after the recording was turned off.

  
The other holotapes I found were pretty straightforward. Dad mentioned that he had set off toward a hidden vault somewhere west of Jury Street metro station and Evergreen Mills, Vault 112, concealed beneath a garage of some sort. I’d already cleared out both of those areas, encountering and killing a super mutant Behemoth in each place, so going through a quieter part of the wasteland was a nice change from fighting off homicidal androids and hordes of Talon Company mercs. The place was so nondescript that I nearly walked right past it, even though I knew what I was looking for, but something told me to stop and check out the derelict building. Aside from killing some mole rats in the basement of the garage before I entered the actual vault, the place was surprisingly deserted. All the other vaults I had visited so far had been filled with some kind of horror that was out for my blood, from insane survivors pumped full of hallucinogenic gas in one vault, to murderous clones named Gary in another, so I was on my guard.

  
I wandered the empty halls of Vault 112 and wondered what could have brought Dad to such a desolate place. There were no signs of habitation, but the place just didn’t feel right, a palpable feeling of despair hanging in the corridors. Dad had mentioned some Vault-Tec genius named Doctor Braun who was supposed to have been a resident of this vault, some two hundred years ago, but this long after the Great War, I wasn’t sure what he was hoping to find. I finally made my way into the large center chamber of the vault, where the dining hall and recreation areas should be, and found a number of pods of some sort, clustered in a ring around a large computer system that seemed to be feeding them information. Slowly going from one pod to the next and peering through the glass at their occupants, I was shocked to find Dad occupying one of the pods. His eyes were open, and he blinked occasionally, but his attention was firmly focused on the screen in front of his face, and no matter how hard I pounded on the glass, he didn’t appear to acknowledge my presence.

  
“Excuse me,” a soft, robotic voice said from behind me. I whipped around, magnum in hand, to find a robobrain behind me, possibly the first one I had encountered that wasn’t trying to kill me on sight. I had been so distracted trying to free Dad from that damned pod that the robot had snuck up on me. “Your arrival is two hundred two point three years behind schedule,” it continued. “You must put this on to enter the Tranquility Loungers.” It handed me a familiar blue and yellow vault suit, emblazoned with 112 on the back, and began to trundle away.

  
“Wait!” I called after it. “My father’s in one of these, what did you call them, Tranquility Loungers? How do I get him out of there?”

  
“You must be properly attired in your Vault-Tec issued vault suit to enter the Tranquility Loungers,” it repeated and turned away from me to go about its robotic business.

  
“Oh fuck this noise!” I exclaimed, but the robot ignored me. “Well, shit,” I muttered. “Guess I don’t have a choice here.” I removed my armor, hanging it neatly in a nearby locker, and began slowly donning the vault suit. Aside from a different vault number on the back, it was identical to the one I used to wear in Vault 101, the one I hadn’t worn since leaving my home vault. As I zipped it up, the familiar feeling of the fabric on my skin triggered an immediate rush of memories: Butch and his gang tormenting me, seeing Jonas lying dead on the floor, all the security guards I’d had to kill on my way out of the vault, and various other traumas I’d tried so hard to forget in the months since I escaped Vault 101. It was so overwhelming that I threw up my meager lunch in one violent heave, bent over nearly double and clutching my aching midsection.

  
“Cleanup on aisle five,” I joked weakly, rinsing my mouth out with a bottle of water while trying to control my shaking hands. Once properly attired, I searched the vault for any other way to free my father, but to no avail. It looked like I would have to enter one of the pods to find a way to get Dad out of whatever was keeping him in there, and if I had to wear the damned vault suit to do it, so be it.

  
What I found in the pod wasn’t at all what I had expected. I was drawn into a simulation of a pre-war suburban neighborhood, complete with white picket fences. Doctor Braun, still alive after all these years, had disguised himself as a psychotic little girl named Betty, and refused to tell me where Dad was unless I helped him torment the other vault residents who also resided in the simulation. I wasn’t about to do anything the egotistical bastard wanted, even to find Dad, but one of the vault’s residents, old lady Dithers, told me there was a failsafe that would free them all from the simulation. What she didn’t tell me was that the failsafe was a recreation of a Chinese invasion, and that it was only freeing the vault dwellers by killing them, a poor kind of freedom if you ask me, but it seemed to be what they all wanted, so I went along with it. The failsafe had the added bonus of trapping Doctor Braun in the simulation by himself, as he was unable to be killed by anything in the simulation. It was poetic justice, leaving the man to rot in his own simulation for however many centuries the power held out, and I did manage to get some information from him before exiting, such as the fact that Dad had been in the simulation all along, disguised as a dog named Doc. I could have kicked myself for not figuring out the obvious pun, but I was too busy getting the hell out of Doctor Braun’s nightmare factory for self-recriminations.

  
I would have thought that Dad would be happier to see me, since I had just freed him from an eternity spent scratching virtual fleas, but in the months since his departure from Vault 101, I had conveniently forgotten some of the less flattering aspects of my father’s character. He was all business when he stepped out of the Tranquility Lounger, raring to get back to the business of purifying all the water in the Capital Wasteland as soon as possible. I admired his dedication to a cause, but a hug would have been nice after we’d been separated for six months. I settled for second best, as I’d always wanted to work with him. Dad told me he wanted me with him when he finally realized Mom’s dream of clean water for everyone, as if he could have kept me away, and said he was heading back to Rivet City to talk to Doctor Li. I pleaded prior commitments and told him I’d meet up with him as soon as I could. I suppose I could have gone with him straight away, but I was hurt by his lack of caring, and needed a little time to put my façade back in place and hide my bruised feelings.

  
I stopped by Megaton on my way back to Rivet City, ostensibly to gear up, but really to spend some time cuddling a dog who actually did give a crap if I lived or died. Dogmeat was predictably ecstatic to see me, despite the fact that Harden Simms and Maggie Creel had been spoiling him rotten while I was gone, and his devotion was a balm to my abused ego. I also checked on Brian Wilks, who I’d brought to Megaton to live with Lucas Simms temporarily while I arranged for him to live with his aunt in Rivet City. Lucas had been treating Brian like his own, and it was good to see the traumatized boy coming out of his shell after everything that had happened to him. I sent him off to Rivet City with Lucky Harith’s caravan, figuring that a man who owned so many guns could take care of one little boy between Megaton and Rivet City, and not wanting Brian subjected to the grueling pace I would be setting to make up for my detour. Lucas, bless his heart, gave Brian a buck knife that was almost bigger than he was, and promised to visit once Brian got settled with his aunt Vera.

  
I got back to Rivet City just as Dad was waiting for Security to extend the bridge, and felt perverse satisfaction that he hadn’t had to wait on me to get right back to work. Harkness came down the bridge to meet us, and I introduced Dad, hoping he wouldn’t notice how Harkness’ eyes lingered on certain parts of my anatomy.

  
“Harkness, this is my dad, Doctor James Miraven. Dad, this is Harkness. He’s the chief of security for Rivet City and a…friend.”

  
“Doctor Miraven, nice to finally meet you.” Harkness shook Dad’s hand with a cool professionality that I envied. “You’ve raised a fine daughter. Elle’s been a real help to **everyone** in Rivet City.” His eyes met mine as he spoke, and I couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran through me from the force of his gaze.

  
“Nice to meet you as well, Harkness, was it?” Dad replied. “I’m glad to hear that my little girl’s been keeping herself out of trouble.”

  
I snickered quietly at that, as trouble was literally the last thing I’d been keeping myself out of, and even Harkness couldn’t quite suppress a grin at the irony of Dad’s words, but he managed to hold it together better than I did.

  
“Something like that,” was all he said. “Sorry to cut this short, but I’ve got to get back to it. Bannon and Seagrave are fighting again, and they might tear the entire marketplace apart if I don’t go break up their little catfight. Elle, I’ll see you later.” Harkness turned on his heel to go, and I made to follow him, but Dad put a hand on my arm to restrain me.

  
“Trielle, are you having…relations with Mister Harkness?” It took him a while to get the words out.

  
“It’s…complicated,” I sighed. “And it’s just Harkness, not Mister Harkness.”

  
Dad ran his hand over his face tiredly. “I was hoping you’d be much older before I had to give you this talk. Honey, when a man and a woman love each other very much…”

  
“Dad!” I held up my hand to stop him, but he just continued as if I hadn’t spoken.

  
“A man puts his…parts into a woman’s…parts and…oh how I wish your mother was here to tell you this.”

  
“Dad, seriously!” I barked. “I know all about the birds and the bees.”

  
“And when the man…ejaculates inside of the woman, nine months later a baby is born.”

  
“Daaaaad!” I shrieked, mortified beyond all belief. I covered my ears to stop his torrent of words from working their way into my brain. “La, la, la, I can’t hear you!” All the maturity I’d acquired over the last six months of being on my own was completely destroyed by a few words from my father that I could never un-hear, and he’d reduced me to acting like I was five again.

  
“Unless the man and the woman use protection,” he continued. “You are protected, aren’t you, Trielle?”

  
Though muffled, I could still hear his question, and took my hands away from my ears long enough to roll my eyes so hard I almost passed out. “Yeah, Dad,” I said sarcastically. “I’ve got a .44 magnum right here.” I pulled out my hand cannon and waggled it at him.

  
“That’s not what I meant…” he started, then realized that I hadn’t been serious. “Very funny, dear, but I was being...”

  
“Dad…dad… **dad!** ” I interrupted him. “I’m nineteen. You don’t have to worry about it. I…,” My next words were cut off by a nasty feedback squeal that had me covering my ears again, this time in physical pain rather than mental. I went over to examine the source of the horrible noise and discovered that, naturally, the button for the intercom had gotten stuck down in the broadcast position…which meant that the entirety of Rivet City had just heard the Lone Wanderer’s father lecturing her about where babies come from. I thought my head might explode as I hit the button repeatedly to get it unstuck, when Dad came over and put his arm around my shoulders in the hug I’d been dying to receive since I found him. It wasn’t much of a hug, but I’d take what I could get, and it was a balm for my wounded soul, at least until Dad leaned over.

  
“But, honey,” he whispered in my ear, “you know he’s not human, right?”

  
“ **Daaaaaaaad!** ”


	17. Cogito Ergo Sum (I Think, Therefore I Am)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs for this chapter are Billy Squier - My Kinda Lover, Clean Bandit feat Jess Glynn - Rather Be, and Sofia Carson - Love Is The Name.

**Cogito Ergo Sum (I Think, Therefore I Am)**

  
**Harkness**

  
After Elle’s father had inadvertently broadcast his ‘facts of life’ talk and my burgeoning relationship with Elle to the entire city, I completely understood her desire to get out of Rivet City as fast as possible. My only saving grace from being ribbed mercilessly was that I possessed a fierce glare and the trigger skills to back it up, and mostly everyone was too afraid that I just might shoot them somewhere painful to give me much shit about my personal life. I had offered to send a squad of my best officers along with Elle’s dad, but he refused the escort, and left for Jefferson Memorial shortly after sunrise the next morning. For an egghead, his response was definitely unexpected. I had no idea a scientist could be so graceful, and I couldn’t argue with the logic, even if I still hated the outcome. Doctor Li and all her assistants went with him, as well as the woman who had been turning my emotions inside out since I met her. I hadn’t intended to, but I found myself lurking by the entrance to Rivet City when they were scheduled to leave, and as the party passed, I yanked Elle into an unused room for a quick goodbye.

  
“Harkness…” was all she got out before my mouth crashed down on hers, stopping whatever she’d been about to say. Despite my words to her from a few days ago, it seemed that I just couldn’t stay away from her, even though I knew that a relationship at this stage wouldn’t be good for either of us. Her hands crept up to tangle in my hair, and I pulled her closer to feel her delectable curves against me through our armor. She pulled away after a long moment, looking utterly wrecked, and I put up a shaking hand to straighten my ruffled hair.

  
“Harkness?” There was an unspoken question in her tone, but I knew exactly what she was asking.

  
“Elle…I…I know I said we should slow down, but…just be careful out there. Okay?” I kissed her again sweetly, rubbing our noses together in a move I’d sworn I’d never be caught dead practicing, but didn’t seem so bad when it was with Elle.

  
“Okay, Harkness,” she murmured against my lips when we separated for the second time, her eyes looking a bit glazed over. “You be careful too. Don’t let Bannon and Seagrave get to you. And eat your vegetables.” She seemed to understand all the things I left unspoken, and blew me a kiss as she left the room to rejoin her father.

  
“Trielle, you look flushed,” I heard her father say, and quickly ducked further into the room so he wouldn’t see me. “Are you all right?”

  
“Fine, Dad,” she said impatiently. “Let’s just get going.”

  
“Are you sure you’re not coming down with a fever?” I could picture him putting his hand to Elle’s forehead as they walked away, just as I could picture her rolling her eyes and ducking away from his hand. “No, your temperature isn’t elevated…oh wait, you’re just hormonal. Look, I’ve told you…” I almost couldn’t contain my laughter as I heard Elle physically dragging her father out the door to keep him from coming to investigate the shadows concealing me.

  
I exited my hiding spot as soon as I heard them cross the bridge separating Rivet City from the rest of the Capital Wasteland, and headed inside to start another day of keeping the city from imploding. I had plenty of paperwork to keep me busy, but I needed to keep moving, keep busy, anything to keep me from focusing on the recent disturbing revelations of my inhumanity, so I started patrolling the narrow corridors of my city, listening for sounds of impending trouble. Somewhere near the Capitol Preservation Society, I sensed a presence following me, and looked back to see C.J. Young trailing along behind me.

  
“Shoo,” I muttered, but she giggled and kept following me, undeterred, so I relented. “Hi, C.J.,” I said wearily.

  
“Hiya, Mister,” she chirped.

  
I turned away to resume my restless patrol through the halls, but several turns later, the sound of tiny footsteps alerted me that the girl was still shadowing me. I was tempted to use my ‘Security Chief’ voice on her, but recalled just in time that Elle seemed to like the little girl, and might be upset with me if she heard that I’d been mean to her.

  
“Run along and play, C.J.,” I ordered, deliberately keeping my voice soft, but expecting that she would obey me.

  
“I’m bored,” she announced. “James knocked over his mom’s happy juice, so he’s grounded, and I have no one to play with.” She sighed dramatically. “Hey, where’s the funny lady with the purple hair? She’ll play with me. Did she ever find her daddy?”

  
It took me a minute to sort through her stream of consciousness and formulate a reply to her questions. “Purple hair…oh, you mean Elle?” She nodded happily, and I continued. “Yes, she did find her daddy, and she’s with him right now. That’s why she’s not here.”

  
“I’m glad she found her daddy,” C.J. smiled. “I hope she comes back soon. I like her. She’s nice. I like you too. You’re nice too.” I shook my head at the delusions of the small. C.J. must have bumped her head on something if she thought I was nice. She tugged at the leg of my armor and beckoned me to bend down to her level. I humored her as she cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered in my ear as if imparting the greatest secret ever told.

  
“She likes you too,” C.J. divulged. “I heard her tell Mei.” She gave me a serious look, at least, as serious as someone so young could manage. “I think you two should get married, like Angela and Diego.” She giggled behind her hand at this.

  
Now I was reduced to taking relationship advice from an eight year old? I was all ready to dismiss her words out of hand, when a wild impulse hit me and I crouched down so we were at the same eye level.

  
“C.J., can I ask you a very serious question,” I queried, throwing all caution to the wind. I must have been insane to bare my soul to a child, but I had no one else to talk to about my internal struggle, so what the hell? She nodded, eyes wide. “First, you gotta promise me something, okay? Always remain a child at heart, no matter how serious the world gets. Just don’t let that get you killed.” She nodded again, hanging on my words, even though I was sure she had no idea what I was going on about. I took a deep breath and blurted my question out before I had the chance to change my mind. “C.J., what would you do if you thought you were one thing all your life, but you turned out to be something completely different?”

  
“You mean like a butterfly?” she asked.

  
“What do you mean?” I questioned.

  
“Elle told me about butterflies. She said they used to exist before the Great War, but they don’t now, because of the bombs. She said that they started out as caterpillars, these fuzzy worm things that crawled on the ground, but then they went through a meta…metamor…”

  
“Metamorphosis?” I finished.

  
“Yeah, that thing,” she said. “When they were done, they were butterflies, with wings, and they could fly. But they were still just caterpillars with something extra. So maybe you’re not completely different,” she concluded, “you just have something extra that makes you a butterfly instead of a caterpillar.” She thought for a moment. “Maybe Elle is your something extra. You used to be really mean, but ever since Elle came to Rivet City, you’re much friendlier than that Mister Gutsy upstairs.”

  
“Caterpillars with something extra,” I repeated, astounded that something so deep could have come out of her mouth. “And she thinks I’m friendlier than the other robot on this boat.” I completed the rest of my patrol in a fog, with all my considerable computing power pondering C.J.’s completely innocent statement that was turning my perception of myself on its head. C.J. seemed happy just to tag along with me as I paced through the halls and walkways, and a few stern glares forestalled any comments regarding the child who was following me like a trusting baby duck. Eventually, my perambulations took me by the Young family abode, and I managed to detach C.J. from my person with the promise of her mother’s cookies.

  
“Chief Harkness,” Christie Young greeted me. “C.J.’s not in trouble, is she?” I shook my head. “She hasn’t been bothering you, has she?”

  
“Not at all, Missus Young,” I assured her. “C.J. has the makings of a fine security officer…if she keeps her nose clean.”

  
C.J. giggled and her mother covered a smile with her hand at my falsely gruff tone. “You look like you could use a cookie, Chief.” She held out the plate of warm cookies, and before I knew what I was doing, my hand had reached out and taken a cookie.

  
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “I have to get back to work now. Take care.”

  
I honestly didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but my newly discovered android hearing was much more sensitive than I was used to, and once the door had closed behind me, I heard Christie say “I think I’m going crazy, but that man looks like he needs a hug.”

  
“He’s okay, mommy,” I heard C.J. reply. “He just found out that he’s a butterfly…” I moved away before I could overhear any more of their conversation.

  
I decided that I’d done enough patrolling for the day, and it was time to get back to the mountain of paperwork threatening to sink my desk through the entire ship and into the depths of the Potomac River. I thought I’d managed to get back to my office unseen, but sure as shit, minutes after I sat down, Lana Danvers came strolling through the door…without knocking. I suspected that woman had managed to sneak some kind of pre-war lojack onto my person, but I had no way to prove it, or any idea how she’d done it.

  
“Hey there, Boss Man.” I didn’t understand how Lana could be so damn cheerful with me, but such a stoic bitch with everyone else on the boat.

  
“Hi, Lana,” I said, resigning myself to the idea that she was here to take another poke at my love life, and she didn’t disappoint.

  
“How’s your girlfriend, Boss? I heard her father tell her about the facts of life. I bet that was embarrassing.”

  
“Elle’s fine, Lana,” I replied.

  
“Gotcha!” she crowed. “You just admitted that she’s your girlfriend.”

  
“Would that be such a bad thing?” I demanded, more to shut her up than anything, but as the words left my mouth, I realized that they were true.

  
“I…what? No…,” she stammered, clearly caught off guard by my question. “No, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, Boss. She’s a huge heap of trouble, and breaks all the rules around here, but she’s…good for you.” Lana thought about it for a moment. “You’ve never been what I’d call happy, but you do seem a lot more relaxed lately, ever since Elle came to Rivet City.”

  
“Does that mean you approve, Lana?” I laughed softly.

  
“I guess I do, Harkness.” Lana must be rattled if she was calling me by my name. She cleared her throat and looked away. “I’ve got things to do before my shift starts, Boss Man. See you later.”

  
After Lana exited my office, I thought a little more about my singular predicament. I **was** changed, and there was no turning back from it, but maybe that change didn’t have to be a bad thing. As I began to ponder this new situation, I probed my psyche for answers, and for the first time, a realization struck me, and I came to a conclusion, of sorts. Whatever I was, I realized that my conflicting emotions were actually proof of something more profound. My mind began to grasp at an elusive concept, namely that if I could simultaneously believe in two absolute truths that were utterly contradictory, then I certainly had proof that I had exceeded any form of programming, and at least entered into the irrational realm of thoughts that only human beings could entertain. Maybe I could still be human, just with a little extra, and Elle could be a part of that something extra that made me different from everyone else on the ship.

  
It struck me how quiet the boat was for this time of day. Usually someone was hammering on my door or seeking me out for something or another, some problem that only I could solve, but Elle had swept in like a whirlwind and fixed everyone’s issues, however temporarily. In the span of a day, she’d given Mei some confidence and the means to defend herself, given Mister Lopez a new purpose in life, which had the added benefit of getting Ted Strayer out of my hair, and gotten Angela and Diego sorted out romantically. I could use someone like that by my side, soothing tempers and smoothing ruffled feathers where my first reaction would be to go for my gun and sort things out later.

  
“God help me, I need that woman in my life,” I muttered to myself, and that was that.


	18. Shattered Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Foster the People - Houdini.

**Shattered Memories**

  
**Trielle**

  
I can’t even begin to describe the horrifying images still coursing through my brain as I made my way back to Rivet City after our disastrous mission to the Project Purity headquarters at the Jefferson Memorial. It was like I had dropped my mind from a great height and it had shattered into a million tiny pieces. Fragments of memory played across my vision in disjointed flashes.

  
…Vertibirds touching down outside the memorial, disgorging armored Enclave troops like hideous eggs laid by some monstrous metal animal…

  
…Colonel Autumn shooting Janice Kaplinsky when my father wouldn’t give up the secrets of his life’s work…

  
…Dad sacrificing himself for his work, dying in front of me while I pounded my hands raw on the airlock door, screaming at the top of my lungs for him to stop…

  
…Doctor Li dragging me away from the glass, all that was keeping me from my father’s lifeless body…

  
…Endless running-and-gunning through the escape tunnels below the memorial, Enclave soldiers at every turn, dragging three useless scientists and a heartsick handyman behind me in a desperate attempt to get to someplace safe…

  
…Elder Lyons offering his condolences on the death of my father, pity in his eyes for the bedraggled orphan child that fate had washed up on his doorstep…

  
When all was said and done, I had garnered some help from the Brotherhood, a paltry minimum at best, but better than nothing. Elder Lyons had agreed to give us sanctuary in the Citadel, which we so desperately needed, and had allowed me to trade with their quartermaster and learn the use of power armor. Scribe Rothchild had shown me where to find the Garden of Eden Creation Kit that Dad had been seeking for Project Purity, and I vowed that whatever else I did in the wasteland, I would find the G.E.C.K. and finish what he and my mother had started those long years ago.

  
After spending a week or so in the Citadel licking my wounds, both physical and emotional, I left the protection of the Brotherhood, intending to get to the vault that contained the prize I sought, but a radio transmission picked up on my Pip Boy soon derailed all my best laid plans. My old home, Vault 101, was in big trouble, the younger crowd having rebelled against the older in a desperate bid to escape the ‘born in the vault, die in the vault’ mentality. The message was from my former best friend, Amata, begging me to come back and set things to rights. I almost said ‘fuck it’; after all, these were the same people who were trying to kill me not so long ago, but I never could resist anything Amata wanted me to do, including not killing her father when I escaped the vault the first time, as much as he deserved it.

  
So I went back, to play diplomat, of all things, between Amata’s rebels and the overseer. I got him to step down in favor of Amata, who said that she would eventually open the vault for outside trading, but asked me to leave and never come back. For the good of the vault, she said, because people still blamed me for what had happened the night Dad ran away, and I found myself being exiled from the only home I had ever known for the second time. It really hurt, having people I’d known my whole life looking at me with fear and disgust in their eyes, but I was a big girl, so I held it together and acted like none of it mattered.

  
I stopped in Megaton for a few days to repair my gear, wash off the trail dust, and just enjoy the fact that for once, no one was shooting at me. I was going to continue on to Lamplight Caverns from there, the only way to the vault I needed, but something drew me back to Rivet City, an equal mixture of familiar spaces and the lure of a handsome android, and I was so distressed by that point that I didn’t fight it. I needed to surround myself with the comfort of friends, needed to talk to someone, anyone, who would understand what I was feeling, though I would never admit it. I was managing not to have a complete hysterical breakdown…until I stepped into the Muddy Rudder for a drink first thing back in the city.

  
“Heeeey, it’s our hero. The girl who opened the vault and let us all out to play in the wasteland.” Butch DeLoria would have to be the first thing I saw back in Rivet City. I was already feeling vulnerable and emotionally drained, and here was my chief nemesis, sitting his ass on a barstool in my bar, in my city, acting like he hadn’t a care in the world while he invaded my turf. How dare he! I felt my entire body flush with rage, and I snapped.

  
“Look Butch!” I barked, fighting against the surge of adrenaline that was hitting me so hard my whole body shook. “I may have had to put up with your shit in the vault, but we’re out in the real world now, and you’re on my turf. I won’t let you push me around anymore, so you can just march your ass out of my bar and get out of my city!”

  
“Whoa, babe.” Butch thought he was so slick. “I only gave you so much shit because I was waiting for you to stand up for yourself. I like the new you.” He stood up and strutted over to me, eying me up and down in a manner that made my blood boil. “I **really** like the new you.”

  
My treacherous memory flashed back to a scene from my history, me at age twelve, cornered in yet another unused area of the vault by Butch and Wally. They had finally settled on Tunnel Snakes for the name of their gang, and were intent on proving that they were the biggest, baddest gang ever, never mind that they were the only gang in the vault. I was not long out of the infirmary after the incident with the junkie, and even at normal strength, I couldn’t have defended myself against both of them at once. I was just starting to ‘blossom into womanhood,’ as all the adults put it, and Butch and Wally took it in turns to pin me against the wall and grope me, squeezing my budding breasts and rubbing their hands between my legs. I struggled against the assault, and finally managed to get in a lucky shot and kick Wally in the nuts. That’s when they decided that it would be more fun just to beat the shit out of me and leave me to crawl back to the infirmary by myself. Despite my assertions that I had not started the fight, that I was in fact an innocent victim, the overseer chose to believe that I was the only troublemaker, and I found myself on toilet cleaning duty when I had recovered enough to walk again. I had every reason to want Butch dead, had even pulled out the little knife I carried in my sleeve. He wouldn’t catch me like that again; I wasn’t the bullied little girl anymore, and he would pay with his life this time.

  
Before I knew what was happening, Butch had grabbed me around the waist and pulled me in close, mashing his lips on mine in an inexperienced kiss while grabbing my butt in a clumsy grope that in no way came close to Harkness’ finesse with the same maneuver. I saw red and shoved him hard, breaking his hold on my waist and pushing him away from me. I wanted so badly to stab him with the knife in my clenched fist, but a little voice inside me screamed that stabbing was too good for him. In a heartbeat, I sheathed the knife and instead belted him as hard as I could in the nose with my fist, knocking him ass over teakettle into the barstools.

  
“You ever lay a lip on me again and I’ll strip you naked and drop you into a sewer full of radroaches!” I yelled, so close to the ragged edge of losing control that it scared me “Rivet City is mine, asshole, my territory, not yours, and your precious Tunnel Snakes aren’t here to do your dirty work for you this time! I’m the nastiest thing in this wasteland, as far as you’re concerned, and you better remember it! If you come within a hundred feet of me again, even your mother won’t recognize you when I’m done with you!” As he started to get up, I kicked him hard in the nuts, causing him to collapse back to the floor, writhing in pain and clutching himself. “I don’t need this shit! I’m outta here!”

  
I ran up the stairs like I was being chased by a whole pack of deathclaws, desperate to get out of the city before I disgraced myself. I was panting with rage and gasping rapidly in an attempt to keep back the tears I had yet to shed, so angry with myself and the whole world that I couldn’t see more than two feet in front of my face. I had gotten out the main hatch and was striding down the bridge when someone grabbed me by the shoulder, halting my rapid progress. I swung around, fist swishing through the air to punch the asshole who had dared to lay a hand on me. Harkness caught my fist like I was standing still, gripping my wrist with firm but gentle fingers.

  
“Starting bar fights and taking potshots at people isn’t like you,” he rasped. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Elle?”

  
I opened my mouth to tell him off, but something inside me broke at that moment.

  
“Dad’s dead!” I wailed, and burst into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter and the next right after replaying The Waters of Life and Trouble on the Homefront, so the emotions were very fresh in my mind. These two quests in particular really hit me in the feels.


	19. Just a Kiss in the Moonlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs for this chapter are Blue Oyster Cult - Veteran of the Psychic Wars and Lady Antebellum - Just a Kiss

**Just a Kiss in the Moonlight**

  
**Harkness**

  
_What do you do with a crying woman?_ Maybe that was why I didn’t have a wife anymore, because I didn’t know how to comfort a crying woman. But no, I had to keep reminding myself, I never had a wife; those were someone else’s memories fighting for space in my brain with the real memories, like trying to shove a ten pound sausage into a five pound casing.

  
Awkwardly, I put my arms around her, and murmured soothing noises in her ear as I held her against my chest, her tears soaking into my thin cotton shirt. I had never seen Elle lose control like this, and it worried me. She’d been so tough and ready for action since I’d known her, but it seemed her father’s death had pushed her over the edge. I had been in the back room of the Muddy Rudder talking to Belle, and had come out just in time to see her confrontation with the other vault kid, Butch.

  
I really thought she was going to kill the little shit right then and there, had seen her palm the knife she carried, and then seen the conscious decision not to use it. He’d kissed her just long enough for me to get jealous, which was stupid because it wasn’t like she’d had a chance to decide if she was **my** woman, and then she’d reacted with all the subtlety of a ton of bricks. She should have beat the shit out of him – I would have – but she confined herself to clocking him in the nose and kicking him in the nuts, which was no less than he deserved, and then rushed out of the bar before he could scrape himself off the ground. I left Belle to deal with the vault asshole and took off after Elle before she did something really stupid.

  
“Shhh, Elle, it’ll be okay,” I crooned, rocking her against me like a child. I was glad I had just gotten off duty and wasn’t wearing my armor when she stormed into the bar, otherwise I couldn’t have held her as close and it would have been mighty uncomfortable for her to be pressed up against armor plates. We stood like this for several long moments until her tears subsided and she pulled away from me to wipe her cheeks with her hands.

  
“Thanks, Harkness,” she said shakily. “I’m okay now.”

  
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think you have a lot more you need to get off your chest before you’re truly ‘okay,’ and I have just the thing for that. We’re gonna get you drunk.”

  
Not waiting for an answer on her part, I scooped her up and threw her over my shoulder, her head bouncing against the small of my back, her bottom right next to my face, and headed back inside with her.

  
“Put me down, Harkness! This is not dignified! I will not be carted around the ship over your shoulder like your doxy!”

  
“Shut up, Elle,” I said as I smacked her hard on the ass. “The whole damned ship can hear your caterwauling.” She gasped with fury and struggled in my grasp. “Quit it!” I barked, smacking her again. “You’ll make me drop you, and then you’ll fall down all these stairs and have nobody but yourself to blame.” She subsided, but I heard her muttering under her breath, promising dire retribution for the humiliation.

  
“…get you later…you’ll pay for this,” drifted up from her, and I put my hand on her bottom again, partly to shut her up and partly because I’d probably never have her in this position again. I carried her up several flights of stairs, heading for the observation deck off the bridge, caressing and squeezing that glorious mass of flesh the whole way up. I could feel her seething with anger, but I was enjoying myself too much to care.

  
I opened the door to the observation deck and set her on her feet well away from the missing railing, ducking as her fist went whizzing by my head. I grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her to one of the chairs bolted to the deck plating.

  
“Sit!” I commanded, and something in my tone made her sit and not take another swing at me like she was no doubt itching to do. I went over to the refrigerator full of liquor we kept on deck for Security to drink when they were off duty, and opened it with the key that every officer was given along with their uniforms. I pulled out several bottles of whiskey and a couple of bottles of beer and carried them back to her. I popped the top off one of the beers, handed it to her, and sat down in the chair next to her.

  
“Blech,” she said, making a face as she took her first swallow of beer. “This can’t have been a good brew to begin with, and sitting around getting irradiated for two hundred years hasn’t helped the taste any.” She pitched the almost full bottle over the side, earning herself a nasty glare from me.

  
“Hey! Elle, stop littering! You’re trashing my boat,” I said sternly. “Besides, that’s not the two hundred year old stuff; it’s just not had long enough to lager in the fridge. Hell, we only bottled it yesterday.”

  
She waved an expansive hand at the surrounding wasteland. “Calm down, Harkness. I don’t think the environment’s gonna give a fuck about a few beer bottles.”

  
“I guess you’re right,” I conceded, “but it’s not like we need to make it any worse, and the last thing we need on this boat is drunk mirelurks.” She cracked a smile at that and stifled a hysterical giggle. Man, what I wouldn’t give to see her smile for real. Little did she realize that drunken mirelurks were actually a real big problem. I wanted to tell her how the alcohol tended to put them in a spawning mood, but somehow I thought she had enough on her plate already.

  
We sat in companionable silence for several minutes, sipping our drinks and gazing out into the gathering darkness. Finally, I turned to Elle and tried to sound nonchalant as I asked, “So, you wanna talk about it?”

  
“No,” she grimaced, then sighed. “But I guess I need to. Where do I start?”

  
“What happened after you left Rivet City?” I asked.

  
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know. One minute, we were getting the systems up and running. Dad had me going all over the damned place fixing shit. The next minute, the Enclave showed up and everything went to hell. Dad locked himself in the control room with Colonel Autumn and released enough radiation to kill everyone in there, rather than turn over Project Purity.” Her eyes filled with tears as she said, “Dad died right in front of me, and there wasn’t anything I could do. My only consolation is that he took that bastard colonel with him when he went.” She had pulled her plasma rifle into her lap while we spoke, the plasma rifle I had given her, and she sat cradling it like a teddy bear, unconsciously stroking it in a manner that made my pants not fit properly. She didn’t seem to realize she was doing it, which made it worse, because I couldn’t even call her on it.

  
“So your father sacrificed himself for the dream?” I asked. “A noble deed, but rather selfish of him, all things considered.”

  
“I still can’t believe he’s gone!” she burst out, fresh tears streaking down her face. “We had so little time together. I rescued him from that damned simulation in Vault 112 and he didn’t even have time to hug me before he was back in the saddle. Then we got back to Rivet City, and I thought for sure he’d make time for me. Just a little time,” she sobbed, “that was all I wanted, but no. It’s straight back to work for him, never mind the fact that I’ve spent six goddamned months getting into the worst sort of trouble while trying to find him. And now he’s gone.”

  
I poured her another shot of whiskey and pressed it into her hand while she cried. “C’mon, sweetheart, let it all out. It will only hurt worse the longer you keep it bottled up.”

  
She wiped her tears again and downed the whiskey, holding out the glass for another shot. “So Dad’s dead, and I had to drag that ungrateful bitch, Doctor Li, off to the Citadel to claim sanctuary with the Brotherhood of Steel.”

  
“Did they let you in?” I asked.

  
“Yeah, they let us in.” She sighed heavily. “And they made it very clear that I was only there on sufferance because I wasn’t one of them. I’m so sick of everyone treating me like I don’t belong!” she yelled. “I was allowed to trade with them, to learn how to use power armor, and still it was ‘What aid can I provide, outsider?’ Even after I helped them protect the GNR building, even after I fought a super mutant Behemoth to save their sorry asses, I’m still just the outsider. How many more times do I have to prove myself to them before they’ll stop treating me like I don’t know which end of the gun goes bang?”

  
“I had heard they were kind of…standoffish,” I said, “but anyone that’s seen you fight can tell that you know your business.”

  
“Thanks,” she sniffled. “It’s nice to be appreciated by someone. At least they told me where to find what I’ll need to get Project Purity up and running.”

  
“You’re still going to go through with it? Even after all its cost your family?”

  
“I have to, Harkness. For Dad, for Mom, hell, for the whole damned wasteland.” There was a resolve in her voice that I didn’t like, the kind that could get her killed for a lost cause.

  
“You won’t be letting anyone down if you don’t get the purifier running,” I told her. “No one seriously expects you to finish what your parents started all those years ago.”

  
“But I’m still going to,” Elle said firmly. “I heard my mother’s voice for the first time when I was looking for Dad in the Jefferson Memorial.” Her eyes grew misty again. “Dad had left behind a holotape of him and Mom before I was born.” She blushed slightly. “In fact, based on the contents of the tape, it might be the moment of my conception. They sounded so happy then, so in love. I wish they could have stayed that way.”

  
“Me too,” I murmured, “but I am curious why you didn’t go straight after whatever it is you need for the purifier.”

  
“I would have, but the minute I left the Citadel, I picked up a transmission from my old friend Amata in Vault 101, imploring me to come home and straighten out the mess they had made of things since I left. I was always a sucker for Amata’s bullshit schemes. She came up with the bad ideas, and I took the heat for them when they went wrong.”

  
“Why were you still friends with her if she was always getting you into trouble?” I asked.

  
“She was the only person in the vault who didn’t treat me like a freak. We were best friends, or so I thought.”

  
“What happened in the vault?”

  
“Amata and some of the younger generation had rebelled against their parents and the overseer. I found out that the overseers, all of them since the first one, had been engaged in a plot to keep us all in the dark about what was really going on outside the vault. According to their orders from Vault Tec, Vault 101 was never supposed to be opened, even when the world outside was safe to live in again. They faked radio broadcasts to make it sound like no one could survive out of the vault, and the current overseer, Amata’s father, had enlisted the help of all the adults in the vault to perpetuate the myth. The previous overseer had sent out a scouting party to assess the situation outside. They reported back that they had found a settlement, Megaton, and that it was possible to survive in the wasteland.”

  
“Why would they do that, keep you inside if they knew it was safe to go out?” I asked, confused at the motives of what passed for authority in Elle’s vault.

  
She shook her head. “As near as I could tell, each vault was used as a testing ground for different experiments, with humans as the test subjects. Vault 92 was experimenting on musicians with white noise post hypnotic suggestions. They were trying to create super soldiers who would do only as they were told. Vault 108 was experimenting with cloning. When I visited, the only people in there were clones, all of a man named Gary, and all barking mad. Vault 106 was releasing psychoactive drugs into the air filtration systems.” She grimaced. “I had some…interesting hallucinations in there, and all the remaining residents had gone insane and tried to kill me.”

  
“My god!” I exclaimed. “And they were ordered by Vault Tec to conduct these experiments?”

  
“That’s not the half of it,” she said. “Vault 112, where I found Dad, was home to a set of virtual reality simulators. The people in there were all the original inhabitants from two hundred years ago, including their puppet master, one Doctor Stanislaus Braun.”

  
“Why does that name sound familiar?”

  
“He’s the one that Pinkerton got your memories from, your ‘Harkness’ memories, and before you ask, no, I don’t know anything about them. Pinkerton mentioned that he’d stolen them from Braun, but didn’t know who the memories belonged to, and Braun wasn’t in a very cooperative mood by the time I was done with him.”

  
“You met Doctor Braun?” I asked excitedly.

  
“Trust me,” she said, “you’re better off not knowing what became of your…predecessor, just based on what he’d done to the other residents of that vault. He had them trapped in various simulations throughout the two hundred years since the vault doors closed, and he was torturing them in a variety of ways, just to assuage his boredom. I ended his simulation, which had the unfortunate effect of killing everyone in it except me, Dad, and Doctor Braun, but I suspect they’re better off dead than in the hands of that madman. It also trapped Doctor Braun in the simulation, so now he’s all by himself with no one to play with. Such a shame,” she said, sarcastically.

  
“What was your vault testing,” I wondered, “aside from never opening to the outside world?”

  
“Vault 101 was testing how people would function in a closed society with an overseer who acted more like a dictator and seemed to see everything that went on in the vault. That was its official mission, to see how we would deal with eventual, inevitable inbreeding, and to see how we would collapse in the end.”

  
“That’s cold,” I said.

  
“Of course, that was just the **official** mission. The current overseer took it upon himself to engage in his own vault-wide breeding program on top of that. I stole his journal on the way out of the vault the first time,” Elle smirked. “It was all the really personal stuff, all the things he couldn’t trust to the computer network in case someone hacked into his files, and you wouldn’t believe some of the things I read. I always wondered why he had such a problem with my friendship with Amata, and now I think I know why. The reason that the vault needed a new doctor when Dad showed up was because the old doctor had just died. **She** and Amata’s mother had been having an affair right under the noses of everyone in the vault. The doctor’s husband found out and poisoned Amata’s mother, who died shortly after Dad and I came to Vault 101, and then shot himself and his wife. This left the vault minus a doctor just when Amata’s mother needed one the most. Dad did the best he could to keep her alive, but the poison was just too virulent, and the overseer always blamed Dad for not saving her.”

  
“Wow,” I said. “So the overseer saw his daughter hanging out with another female, an outsider at that, and maybe thought his little girl might share her mother’s tendencies?”

  
“That’s what I thought,” Elle said. “It only makes sense, though only an idiot would think that Amata would ever be interested in girls that way. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that she only liked boys.”

  
“Ah, so you’re partial to the fairer sex,” I teased. “That explains why none of the men in the wasteland have managed to catch your eye – they have too much…equipment.”

  
“You’re hilarious,” she grumped. “Not me. I only go for those with outside plumbing. Amata might have wished she was playing for the other team if she’d known that her father planned to artificially inseminate her with an amalgam of several different sets of DNA, his own featuring quite heavily in the mix. You wouldn’t believe some of the things he wrote about her in his journal. He saw her as a combination substitute for his dead wife and brood mare for the next generation of overseers.”

  
“What a sick fuck!” I snarled, outraged that anyone would do that to his own daughter. “What was the purpose of his breeding program?”

  
“The overseer had decided that we vault dwellers were getting much too stubborn, too hard to control, so he decided to breed a more docile subject. The only exception would have been his daughter’s offspring, who was destined to be an overseer.”

  
“That’s awful,” I breathed.

  
“I know,” she replied. “I figure that’s part of the reason why he hated me so much, apart from the taint of the outside. I was always too smart for my own good, and he didn’t want smart people in his vault, just good little sheep who’d do what he told them and not make a fuss about going outside. He used to pair people off according to some formula known only to him, and we all used to bitch that romance was dead in Vault 101 and we were being bred like cattle. How right we were, though we didn’t know it at the time. I read it all in his journal. He kept track of his progress very carefully, very scientifically for someone who wasn’t a scientist. He even had future pairings listed, all the kids my age and younger, and I wasn’t anywhere on his list, which I guess is a blessing. I can only hope that I derailed his plans when I convinced him to step down in favor of Amata and make her the new overseer.”

  
“When did that happen?”

  
“When I went back to the vault in response to Amata’s message. I almost didn’t, but like I said, I never could tell Amata no. She and the other kids, a couple of the grownups too, had barricaded themselves in the school room and infirmary. They were demanding that the overseer open the vault door and let them go outside to see the wasteland for themselves. He had no intention of giving in to their demands, but wasn’t prepared to use violence against his own daughter, a small point in his favor, but others weren’t so tolerant. Some of the security guards were planning an ambush that would have ended in bloodshed. So I went to Amata’s dad and persuaded him that it was time to let the younger generation take command, that it was useless to try and continue the experiments now. The rebels were getting out of the vault, one way or another.”

  
“So all’s well that ends well, right?” I asked.

  
“I suppose,” Elle sighed. “I should never have gone back in the first place. Everyone still thought I was to blame for what had happened the night Dad escaped. A lot of people died that night, some in the general chaos of the escape and the radroach attack, some by my hand when they tried to kill me first. So Amata asked me to leave and not come back, for the good of the vault because I’d always be a thorn in some people’s sides if I stayed.” Elle screwed up her face, biting her lip to push past the pain this memory brought to the surface. The look on her face said it all – she might act tough, but it was eating her up inside that she’d been treated like that.

  
“Ungrateful bastards,” I growled, “kicking you out again after you saved them from themselves.”

  
“It really hurt, you know?” she cried. “Nobody wanted me there, even the ones who said they were glad to see me. Stanley, who gave me my Pip Boy when I turned ten, told me that I didn’t belong there and needed to leave. I thought they were my friends.” Tears rolled down her cheeks anew, making me want to march up to her old vault and kick the ass of every single person who’d made her cry, both now and during her childhood. Mei had told me some stories while Elle was gone, and frankly, I was surprised she was still as nice a person after what she’d gone through in that damned vault.

  
We’d gone through a couple bottles by this time, with me drinking more than my fair share, and I could tell that Elle was feeling a little better now, though still far from perfect. She still held the plasma rifle in her lap, and the way she’d been fondling it all night was driving me crazy.

  
“Damn, Elle!” I said before I could stop myself. “Your technique really gives a guy ideas.”

  
“What?” she said, then realized what she was doing. “If you like this, then you’ll love what I can do with a **gun** ,” she said in a sultry tone, wiggling her eyebrows on the word ‘gun’ so that I had no doubt what she was referring to, then she ruined the effect by laughing hysterically.

  
“Mission accomplished,” I muttered to myself. “Elle’s drunk and Harkness has a hard on. Just another wonderful night in Rivet City.” I put the remaining bottle of whiskey back in the fridge and turned back to her. “I think we’ve both had enough, sweetheart. Time to call it a night.”

  
Elle stumbled as she got up, not surprising considering how much whiskey she’d downed. Not wanting her to fall off the edge of the observation deck, no matter how many times I’d thought about pitching her off it myself, I snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her roughly against me. She tilted her head up, eyes bright with the remnants of tears for her father and her lost innocence, face awash in bright moonlight, and I lost what little composure I had left. Tangling my free hand in her hair, I crushed my lips down on hers in a brutal, frustrated kiss. She’d been teasing me all night, hell, been teasing me since she stepped foot on my boat, and I just couldn’t take any more. Half expecting to feel her push me away after the emotional shitstorm I’d put her through while sorting myself out, I was shocked when she opened her lips to my assault, letting my tongue curl around hers in a way that left me breathless. Even through the whiskey and tears, she still tasted like heaven. She moaned as I deepened the kiss, and my meager grasp on sanity snapped. I pinned her to the bulkhead and ground my growing erection against her in a move that sent all the synthetic blood in my body rushing downward, its sudden departure from my brain removing all forms of common sense. She rubbed her hand over the bulge in my pants, and then I was the one moaning. I retained just enough presence of mind to tear my lips from hers before this went any farther.

  
“Why’d you stop, Harkness?” she slurred, fighting to catch her breath just as I was. Even in the moonlight, I could see the flush on her cheeks, see that her lips were swollen from my kiss, and I almost went in for another until I remembered why I had stopped.

  
“You’re drunk, Elle.” Why couldn’t I get my heart to stop racing? “And I…am **way** too horny to take this slow. I may be an asshole, but I’m not going to take advantage of you while you’re drunk and broken up over your dad. Okay? So I need a rain check here, gorgeous. I need to do this right, you understand?”

  
“Oh,” she said carefully. “I thought maybe you didn’t want me.”

  
“Not want you?” I said crazily. “I want you so bad it hurts, but you’re three sheets to the wind and thanks to my android metabolism, I’m not. I don’t want you to regret anything in the morning. So we’ll wait.”

  
I swung her up in my arms, her head cradled against my chest, and carried her down all those flights of stairs to her room at the Weatherly. I made her drink some water, left a few more bottles next to her bed for later, helped her strip off her boots, and tucked her into bed. I leaned down and kissed her tenderly on the forehead, brushing her hair off her face. “Good night, Elle.”

  
“Thanks, Harkness,” she whispered. “For, you know, everything.” She slowly tilted her head to one side, and before I knew what happened, we were kissing again. As exciting as it was, it felt as though nothing could be more natural than her lips on mine. She leaned back with a satisfied grin and said, “Yep, rain check gonna be a hell of a storm, handsome,” and then she was asleep with a small smile on her face.

  
“It sure as hell is,” I whispered, and closed the door quietly behind me as I left her room.


	20. Interludes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Clean Bandit - Stronger.

**Interludes**

  
**Angela**

  
“Diego, honey,” I called from the small cubby in our room that I affectionately referred to as my dressing room. “What do you think of Chief Harkness and Elle as a couple?”

  
Diego grunted in response and I pursed my lips in annoyance. I loved my new husband with all my heart, but sometimes it seemed like we were polar opposites. I loved a good gossip, and he was a man of few words who refused to speak ill of anyone. I suppose that was one of the things I loved about him, his idealistic nature and the goodness of his heart that led him to think the best of everyone. Nevertheless, I was determined to win this one.

  
“Diego?” I put a pleading tone in my voice, and he relented.

  
“I think they’d do well together,” he said in his wonderfully deep voice that always gave me shivers. “She brings that spark of happiness and innocence that our chief needs, and he contributes a restraint that she sorely needs.”

  
“Diego!” I squealed. “Elle’s perfectly nice. I thought you didn’t believe in saying anything bad about anyone?”

  
“Elle is a wonderful human being,” Diego agreed. “After all, she brought us together. But love, you have to agree that she is a bit on the wild side and needs someone to steady her.”

  
I chose to ignore that. “Elle’s been gone for a month now, trying to finish her father’s project. Poor Chief Harkness looks like someone kicked his puppy, and he’s been grouchier than usual since she left.”

  
“I do feel for the man,” Diego said. “Being separated from the one you love is never easy.”

  
“You think he loves her?” I asked.

  
“Absolutely! It’s all over his face every time he looks at her,” Diego said.

  
“Aww,” I cooed, utterly entranced by the idea that our hard-assed Chief Harkness could actually be in love with Elle, who had blown into Rivet City like a breath of fresh air. “That’s so sweet. I just **know** she loves him too.”

  
“I believe you’re correct, Angela,” Diego said gravely.

  
“Speaking of love, husband,” I said, having finished getting ready for the night and ready to blow my new husband’s mind with what I was wearing, “you’re gonna **love** this. Elle gave it to me, and I’ve been saving it for just the right moment.” I stepped out of my dressing room and watched Diego’s eyes bug out at the sight of me in the very revealing red nightie that Elle had given me as a wedding present.

  
“Angela…!” he managed to choke out, and nothing else needed to be said.

 

************

 

**Mei**

  
“…and then she says to him “Is that a mini nuke in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” And it **was** a mini nuke, though he must have been breaking the laws of physics to get it into those tight pants he was wearing.” Flak guffawed at his own story while Shrapnel and I laughed appreciatively.

  
About a week after Elle left Rivet City again, that idiot slaver, Sister, managed to come by more liquor than he’d ever seen in one go, and got so drunk that he thought it was a good idea to rob Flak and Shrapnel’s right before the marketplace closed for the night. I happened to be walking by just as Sister was pulling out a gun to shoot the momentarily distracted Shrapnel in the back, and thanks to Elle’s training, before I had time to think about it I had whipped out my own little pistol and shot him point blank in the back of the head. Flak and Shrapnel figured out pretty quick what had happened, and not only did they straighten everything out with Security, they hustled me over to Bannon’s to get me some clean clothes, then whisked me away to the Muddy Rudder for a sit down, a wet cloth to clean my face and arms with, and a restorative drink.

  
Flak made no secret of his past as a slaver in Paradise Falls, or Shrapnel’s as a raider, though both were now reformed businessmen who didn’t take kindly to anybody messing with their friends. And, as they informed me, I was now included in their small circle of friends because “Elle likes you, so we like you. Plus, you got rid of that annoying asshole.” So this night, as with every night since then, I found myself in the Muddy Rudder, sharing a table, drinks, and a lively game of cards with my two unlikely companions.

  
“You look sad, Miss Mei,” said Shrapnel, who wasn’t nearly as rude once he counted you in his good books.

  
“I just miss Elle,” I said. “She would enjoy this.” I gestured to the cards and the drinks.

  
“She would at that,” Flak grinned. “We’ll have to invite her when she gets back from whatever epic quest she’s on this time to save the wasteland.”

  
“I do like Miss Elle,” Shrapnel said suddenly. “She’s like a beautiful wasteland flower, fragrant and soft on the inside, but tough and deadly on the outside. Chief Harkness is a lucky man.” He raised his glass in a silent salute to the absent Elle, drained it, then slammed it back down on the table.

  
Dead silence greeted him, as neither of us had ever heard the normally laconic and mostly downright offensive Shrapnel wax poetic before. Flak squinted at his partner for a long moment, and then thumped him on the back.

  
“Well spoken, friend, well spoken,” he proclaimed, “but you might want to take it easy on the whiskey for a while. It’s making you maudlin.”

  
We all had a good laugh at that, and the card game resumed.

 

************

 

**Vera**

  
“Buckingham, I’m going down to check on the stills,” I said to my Mister Handy robot as I headed around the front desk at my hotel, the Weatherly, and out the front door. “Make sure that Bryan stays out of trouble while I’m gone.”

  
“Yes, mum,” he replied, as he always did, and I knew that the hotel, and my nephew, would be well looked after.

  
I knew I should have picked up an escort to take me down into the bowels of the ship, which weren’t the safest place during the day, and got downright scary at night, but I foolishly thought I’d be okay on my own. After all, security had just cleaned out the latest crop of mirelurks, so there shouldn’t have been any hazard to going down for a quick peek at the stills to make sure that our latest batch of vodka was coming along nicely. I was drawing a little of the potent liquor out of one of the stills to check for purity when I heard the telltale squishing footsteps and small growling noises that heralded the approach of a mirelurk. I whirled around to find the monster right behind me, menacing me with its claws, and I’m ashamed to admit that I screamed at the top of my lungs. I thought I was going to die down there in the dank underdecks of the ship, but a bullet whizzed right past my shoulder, impacting the crustacean in the face with a sound remarkably like the twang of a guitar string, and it collapsed in a stinking heap at my feet.

  
“Wh…what?” I stuttered, and heard a voice from behind me.

  
“Sorry to scare you like that, Miss, but I didn’t think you wanted to become some oversized crab’s dinner.”

  
I whirled around for the second time in as many minutes to find a handsome stranger in a beige trench coat and matching fedora, who was just holstering his .44 magnum revolver. My legs gave out from the shock, and he quickly scooped me up in his arms and carried me to a small room off the distillery that contained a couch and not much else. The man set me down on the couch and sat down next to me with his arm still around my waist to steady me.

  
“Who…who are you?” I muttered weakly.

  
“Well,” he chuckled, “your purple haired friend calls me ‘The Mysterious Stranger,’ but you can call me Farmer.”

  
“Oh,” I said stupidly. “How did you know that I needed help?”

  
“I saw you heading down here and figured you could use someone to watch your back, so I followed you. Lucky for you.”

  
“Indeed,” I said. “You watch me often?”

  
“Who wouldn’t watch a pretty girl?” he said suavely.

  
I honest-to-god blushed at this. “You…you think I’m pretty?” I stammered, acting just like Angela when she used to get tongue-tied around Diego.

  
“I think you’re downright gorgeous, doll,” he murmured.

  
“I…I…how can I ever repay you?” I said hesitantly.

  
“I can think of a few ways,” he drawled, eyes roaming suggestively up and down my form. When I blushed again, he dropped his gaze. “Kidding,” he muttered.

  
“Really?” I purred. “Because I wasn’t.” Throwing my usual proprieties to the wind, I put my hand behind his neck to draw his mouth down to mine. “Let me show you just how thankful I am that you saved me.”


	21. Who Wants to Live Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs for this chapter are Queen - Who Wants to Live Forever and the version of The Show Must Go On from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack.
> 
> This chapter has half a lemon in it.

**Who Wants to Live Forever**

  
**Harkness**

  
I’d been climbing the walls for a solid month since Elle disappeared the morning after our last kiss, leaving only a note that said she’d gone to finish her parents’ work, and an assurance that she’d be back. I was secretly trying not to panic, because maybe this kind of absence was normal for her, but it didn’t feel normal. I understood why she felt why she had to do this by herself, but I wished with all my heart, human and android, that she’d let me come with her to protect her from the dangers of going after something the Enclave would kill to get its hands on. I had almost considered making a trip to the Citadel to question the Brotherhood of Steel about where she’d gone; if anyone knew where she’d gone it would be them, but I ultimately ended up staying put because I knew that Elle wouldn’t appreciate me abandoning my duty to the people of Rivet City to chase after her.

  
I did everything I could to keep myself busy while she was gone, putting myself on every shitty patrol, every nasty cleanup duty, anything I could do to distract my mind from thinking up horrifying scenarios of what might be happening to Elle out there by herself against the entire Enclave. The mirelurk population in and around Rivet City had never been lower, the super mutants made a wise retreat from their camp across the river, and when Talon Company made a small incursion into Anacostia Crossing, I took a team of guys and slapped them down smartly before they could get any ideas about expanding their territory into my sphere of influence. I’m sure my guys worried about how I could keep going like this, and I know I heard Cindy Cantelli whispering about Psycho addictions, but I just didn’t care by that point.

  
I had finally forced myself to sit down in my office and deal with some of the paperwork that had been piling up while I’d been distracting myself with physical activities, and was just pulling the first report off the top of the pile when Mister Lopez opened my door so fast that it banged against the wall.

  
“Elle’s back!” he exclaimed. “I took Ted up to the observation deck to teach him how to identify all the local landmarks, and I saw her coming over the hill by where the super mutant camp used to be. She’ll be crossing the bridge any minute now!”

  
“I owe you one!” I shouted over my shoulder as I ran out the door to greet Elle at the entrance to Rivet City. I took the steps down the bridge tower so fast that were it not for my android reflexes, I’m sure I would have tripped and gone ass over teakettle down the stairs. I came out the door to the bridge just in time to see Elle trudging wearily across the bridge, my plasma rifle slung across her back. She looked tired, but good, in new formfitting armor with the emblem of Riley’s Rangers, a mercenary group that was slowly mapping the wasteland, on the breast, and a pair of sunglasses that made her look like a hardened professional instead of a little girl playing at war.

  
“Elle!” I cried, running to meet her at the head of the bridge. I hugged her hard, picking her up and swinging her around joyfully, so happy to see her alive and in one piece that I didn’t care if my officers saw me making a complete fool of myself.

  
“Harkness!” She hugged me back when I finally put her down, wrapping her arms around me like I was literally the only thing keeping her alive, and resting her head on my chest for a long moment. When she eventually peeled herself off me, I held her at arm’s length for a minute to check out her new gear.

  
“Nice,” I said, indicating her new combat armor. “Fits you much better than the last set.”

  
“It does, doesn’t it?” she said. “I got them out of a jam, so Riley gifted me with this, and I’m helping them map the wasteland with my Pip-Boy.”

  
“And these.” I lifted her sunglasses with one finger. “Very stylish.”

  
“Crow says they’re lucky,” she replied. “He says the spirits have blessed them.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if I believe that, but they have been helping my aim, and they keep the sun out of my eyes very well.” She turned her head and indicated a name embossed on the side of the temple. “I don’t know who Oakley was, but I really like his glasses.”

  
“On to the big question,” I said. “Where have you been for a whole month?”

  
“I’ll tell you all about it over dinner,” she sighed. “I’m starving!”

  
I followed her into the marketplace and watched all the merchants swarm her, with Flak, and surprisingly, Shrapnel, at the forefront of the crowd around her. It seemed that everyone in Rivet City really did like her and was glad she was back safe and sound. She greeted everyone in turn, then laughingly extricated herself from the mass of humanity, gesturing toward Gary’s Galley and making eating motions. She ordered a truly prodigious amount of food and managed to juggle it all long enough to dump it on the nearest table and sit down. I plopped into the seat across from her and waited until she no longer looked like she wanted to gnaw someone’s arm off before continuing our conversation.

  
“Well?” I said expectantly. “Something must have happened out there to keep you gone for a month.”

  
“I got kidnapped by the Enclave,” she said nonchalantly between bites.

  
“What?!” I yelled. “What did they do to you?!” I started to get out of my seat, irrationally ready to go and find the nearest Enclave encampment so I could kick someone’s ass on Elle’s behalf.

  
“Calm down, I’m fine.” She put her hand on my arm to still me. “Let me start from the beginning.”

  
“Alright,” I grumbled, sitting back down. “Continue.”

  
“To start with,” she said, “the Brotherhood directed me to Vault 87 to find the Garden of Eden Creation Kit needed to finally realize my parents’ dream of clean water for the whole Capital Wasteland, but I couldn’t go in the front door because a nuke fell on it during the Great War. So I had to go in the back way, through the Little Lamplight caverns, and wasn’t that a trip. It’s populated by a bunch of kids, all under the age of sixteen, and they don’t trust adults, so they kick their members out when they turn sixteen.”

  
“I imagine you had a hard time convincing them to let you in,” I said.

  
“Yeah, that mayor of theirs, MacCready, is a real foul-mouthed little shit,” she said, “but I’d freed a few of their company from those assholes in Paradise Falls, so he owed me. He had his people show me a couple of back ways into the vault, and you won’t believe what I found when I finally got in there.”

  
“What?” I asked.

  
“The home of the supermutants,” she replied triumphantly. “The Vault-Tec scientists in Vault 87 created the first supermutants shortly after the bombs fell and the vault was sealed. The newly created supermutants took over the vault, then started kidnapping people and turning them into supermutants to perpetuate the species, since they can’t reproduce through normal means.”

  
“Really?” I was fascinated.

  
“And I actually found a friendly supermutant named Fawkes, trapped in a test chamber by the other, not so friendly supermutants. He asked me to let him out, and he helped me get the G.E.C.K., which was in a highly irradiated area of the vault.”

  
“So you **did** get what you needed?” I asked.

  
“Oh I got it all right,” she grimaced. “Then things took a turn for the worse…or the bizarre.”

  
“Do tell?” I said.

  
“I was on my way out of the vault with the G.E.C.K. when I got hit with some kind of…cryo grenade. I stayed conscious just long enough to see that bastard, Colonel Autumn show up and order his men to load me and the G.E.C.K. onto his Vertibird, then I passed out. When I woke up, I was in a holding cell in the Enclave’s base on this coast, Raven Rock. Colonel Autumn wanted me to tell him the code to get the purifier working.”

  
“I’m assuming that you didn’t?” I laughed.

  
“You’re damned right I didn’t!” she said indignantly. “I told him to fuck right the hell off, and then when he pressed me, I told him the wrong code.” She laughed. “He was dumb enough to get one of his soldiers to try it out, as if I’d have told him the right code after all he’s done.”

  
“What happened to his soldier?” I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer to that question.

  
“Died,” she said. “The purifier’s got fail safes built in with nasty countermeasures for those who have no business starting it up.”

  
“I bet that pissed him off royally,” I chuckled.

  
“Oh, it did,” she grinned evilly. “He was about to make me pay for that when his master’s voice summoned him away.”

  
“What do you mean?” I asked.

  
“President John Henry Eden, the guy you hear on the announcements that those stupid eyebots broadcast, and let me tell you something about him…he isn’t even human.”

  
“What is he, then, if not human?” I questioned.

  
“He’s an AI that achieved self-awareness and decided that he was the next president of the Enclave, and by extension, the pre-war United States. Colonel Autumn’s the only one who knew that he wasn’t a real person.”

  
“Huh,” I grunted. “So why did he keep the colonel from hurting you?”

  
“They’d had a disagreement about how to proceed with Project Purity, and Eden wanted Autumn to leave me alone in my cell so he could have a private chat with me and summon me to his presence. He ordered all the Enclave soldiers to stand down and leave me be, but that lasted for all of about five minutes until Autumn turned them against me again. I had to kill a lot of guys on my way out of the place, and I found that bitch, Anna Holt, along the way. I guess they kidnapped her too, but unlike me, she started working with them voluntarily and told them all she knew about Project Purity.”

  
“What happened to her?” I asked.

  
“I left her alive, despite my better judgement,” Elle snarled, “but she probably didn’t stay that way after what I did to that place, but I’ll get to that in a minute!”

  
“Then what?” I prompted.

  
“I made my way up to Eden, which is when I found out he’s a computer. That crazy scrap heap gave me a vial of the modified Forced Evolutionary Virus, which is a variant on what the supermutants are using to create more of their kind. He wanted me to use it to sabotage Project Purity and wipe out anything in the wasteland that’s been tainted with radiation, which is pretty much everything.”

  
“I’ll assume that you also told him to go to hell?” I grinned.

  
“I told him he was absolutely bonkers, that his plan would never work, and convinced him to blow up Raven Rock and end this insanity.” She smiled evilly. “You may have heard the explosion from here?”

  
“And what about Colonel Autumn?”

  
“I’d like to think that he perished in the explosion,” she grimaced, “but given that he’s come back from the dead once already, I don’t think I’ve seen the last of him, and I think he’ll turn up at the most inconvenient place and time.”

  
“So that’s that,” I said. “End of the Enclave?”

  
“Well,” she said, “not quite. More than one Vertibird escaped from Raven Rock, and we’ve still got to oust them from Project Purity headquarters. I stopped by the Citadel on my way back to Rivet City to confer with Elder Lyons, Sarah, and Scribe Rothchild…and Doctor Li. They’ve got a plan to take back Project Purity. We’re a go tomorrow morning.”

  
“Tomorrow morning? But you just got back,” I protested. “They couldn’t give you any more down time after what you’ve just been through?”

  
“The sooner we take my parents’ dream back from those Enclave assholes, the better,” she said resolutely.

  
“Is it at least a good plan?” I pleaded.

  
Her face fell at my question. “Not…really,” she said quietly. “The only option we have is a frontal assault, assisted by that half-built robot of theirs, Liberty Prime, which may or may not function when they start it up.” She swallowed heavily and looked down. “There…there’s a very real chance I might not make it back from tomorrow’s mission.” Her face got whiter as she spoke the words I didn’t want to hear her say, and she pushed her half-eaten plate away from her as she stood up abruptly. “I…I’ve got to go,” she stammered, and rushed out of the marketplace.

  
“Elle!” I called after her, but she kept going. This mission obviously had her more worked up than she’d been letting on, and I needed to do something to get her mind off of it so she wouldn’t be a quivering wreck at go time. I stopped by the hydroponics lab to get a fresh pear, knowing those were her favorite, then headed to her room at the Weatherly with a plate of sliced pear in hand. As I neared the door to her room, my augmented hearing picked up the sounds of muffled sobbing. Concerned, I hit the hidden door override switch that only I, as chief of security, had knowledge of, and stepped through the open door to find Elle face down on the bed, crying her eyes out into a pillow. I put the plate of fruit down on the nightstand and climbed up on the bed next to her, pulling her into my arms.

  
“Oh, come on now,” I crooned as I stroked her hair. “That’s not my big, strong Elle crying over seeing a little action, is it? I’ve seen you take on supermutants and walk away laughing. You’ll be okay, babe.”

  
“It’s a **really** bad plan,” she sobbed, “and we’re way outnumbered.” She sat up suddenly and pounded her fist into the pillow. “Damn him anyway! Why couldn’t he stay alive long enough to finish this thing? I’m only nineteen! I’m not ready for this kind of responsibility! Thanks to his selfishness, my life will be cut short before I’ve even had a chance to live it…and I’ll die a virgin!” she wailed.

  
I put my arm around her and turned her face up to mine with my free hand. “You…don’t have to,” I said quietly. “Not if you don’t want to.” I kissed her softly and felt her start to kiss me back. Her hands crept up to tangle in my hair and she opened her mouth, slipping her tongue between my lips to trace it along my teeth.

  
“Yes, please,” she breathed shakily when we both came up for air. Her clever hands began undoing the various straps and buckles keeping my armor in place, and I let her set the pace until she’d gotten me naked from the waist up, then took my turn with her new armor. We undressed each other slowly; the sounds of armor pieces hitting the floor interspersed with breathless kisses and heated words.

  
“Oh yeah, right there,” she hissed as my teeth scraped against the base of her neck.”

  
“Mmm,” I groaned when her lips found the sensitive spot between my shoulder blades, which turned to a gasp as her eager fingers trailed up my chest to stroke my nipples. I had never realized they were so responsive, and I arched into her touch as she tweaked them, feeling her smirk against my back at what she was doing to me. “Aaah!” I cried out as her fingers traced circles around the previously ignored nubs of flesh. I had to stop her before she drove me too far too fast and this whole night was over before it had even begun. I could have turned down the sensitivity in that particular area, as I had recently learned I could do, but I didn’t want to be reminded on this night of all nights that I was not as human as I seemed.

  
“You keep that up, sweetheart, and I’ll…” I trailed off as I restrained her hands, lifting her arms over my head and turning to face her. I dropped a gentle kiss on the soft skin on the inside of her wrist, and seeing her shiver, kept it up, adding soft nips and running my tongue along the tendons of her wrist until she was a shuddering, moaning mess in my arms. I had been moving in the direction of the bed as I was pleasuring her, and as the backs of my thighs hit the foot of the bed, Elle suddenly decided she wanted to be in charge for a bit.

  
“It’s my turn to make you moan, Harkness.” She gently pushed me back on the bed, and I went willingly, wondering what she could possibly have on her devious little mind. “You never let me touch you as much as I’d like,” she complained. “You’re the first male I’ve gotten to be up close and personal with like this. Can’t I just…explore you and find out where you like to be touched?”

  
As eager as I was to get some release, this night was supposed to be about her, and I understood where she was coming from. “All right,” I said gently, “but you know that if you…overstimulate me, I’ll end up dropping my bombs before the mission’s over, as it were?”

  
She stifled a giggle at that and took my hand. “It’s okay, silly. Dad was a doctor, remember?”

  
“Some spots are more sensitive than others,” I said, “but you seem to have figured that out already.”

  
She nodded wordlessly and turned her attention to my naked body, eying me like I was a four-course meal spread before her for her pleasure. I lost count of how many times she made me groan, and it turned out to be a journey of self-discovery for me as well. I’d had sex before, but never had a lover taken time to thoroughly map all the areas of my body that could turn me on. She revealed that I did, in fact, quite enjoy having my fingers sucked on, that having her kiss the soft spot below my ear was almost unbearably erotic; same for the small of my back, the nape of my neck, and along my pelvic arch, and that feeling her touch any of those areas was enough to send shocks straight to my manhood. She did spend more time on my nipples, almost sending me over the edge right there until I begged her to stop. She poked, prodded, licked, nibbled, and fondled me into a quivering wreck, and I know she didn’t mean to be cruel, but I was so hyper sensitized by the time she was done exploring that every brush of her fingers was almost torture, and I was so hard I was leaking and fighting to keep from just throwing her down on the bed and pounding into her.

  
She pulled away from me momentarily and returned with the plate of sliced pears from the nightstand, and I gave her a questioning look, wondering what she was planning to do with the fruit. My silent inquiry was answered when she took a slice of the cool fruit and ran it up my heated length, drenching me with the sweet juice, before lowering her wicked mouth to suck it off of me. I almost came off the bed when her tongue touched my erection, and I made an inarticulate noise that had her eyeing me with concern without taking her lips off my manhood.

  
“Jesus, Elle, I thought you said you’d never done this before?” I exhaled sharply.

  
She blushed and looked slightly ashamed of herself as she popped her mouth off me with a frankly obscene sound. “I…um…haven’t,” she stammered, “but I found this stash of holotapes under the bed here, and I kinda…watched them, and **wow** , some of the things they did to each other in the tapes. I just wanted to try some of them on you.”

  
“Oh,” I said weakly. “Far be it from me to squash your ideas, but…you might just kill me with this latest one. Fair warning.”

  
Elle gave me a devilish grin with those delectable pink lips of hers, reminding me that I had, on more than one occasion, fantasized about having them wrapped around me, doing exactly what she’d just been doing, and I certainly wasn’t going to stop her from playing out one of my most pervasive fantasies. She proceeded to coat me with pear juice again before taking me in her mouth and teasing me with her tongue. My hands fisted in the bed sheets, and it was a Herculean effort to keep from thrusting up into her greedy mouth. She ran her tongue just under the head, seemingly testing the limits of my endurance, and I swear I saw stars, moaning my pleasure loud enough for the entire ship to hear.

  
“Oh shit!” I was so fucked.


	22. A Night to Remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs for this chapter are David Guetta feat Nicki Minaj - Turn Me On, and Maurice Ravel's Bolero, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergieve conducting.
> 
> And now for the other half of the lemon.

**A Night to Remember**

  
**Trielle**

  
I might be almost assured of dying tomorrow, but at least I wouldn’t leave this world completely untried in the ways of men and women. I hadn’t thought I’d be into that, but I was really enjoying having Harkness at my mercy, and hearing the sounds he was making while I pleasured him was turning me on beyond all belief.

  
“Nnngh!” His hips flexed as I sucked him hard, running my tongue along the underside of his shaft while cupping his sack. A steady stream of breathless curses fell from him as I continued to bob my mouth up and down, and I could tell from the way he moved his hips that he really wanted to thrust hard into my mouth, but was politely refraining from choking me.

 

After not nearly enough time spent tormenting Harkness, he fisted his hand in my hair and tried to pull me off his arousal. “Elle, oh fuck!” he moaned, sounding pushed beyond his limits. “Stop! Oh god, stop! I’m gonna…” He moaned again and punctuated his aborted plea by bucking his hips off the bed, almost dislodging my mouth, but I’d already decided to find out what he tasted like, so I kept at it, determined to make him fall apart.

  
“Fuck!” He spasmed hard, his shaft swelling and pulsing as he came, flooding my mouth with his creamy ejaculate, which wasn’t terrible, despite what I’d heard the other vault girls say when they thought I wasn’t listening. I swallowed, and I will say that the texture took some getting used to, but I was willing to try it again, though I was surprised that the Institute had actually made androids produce something resembling semen in their quest to mimic humans.

  
“Elle,” he panted as soon as he could breathe again, “you didn’t have to do that.”

  
“I wanted to,” I grinned. “And besides, listening to you completely lose it really turned me on.”

  
“Get up here!” he growled, his voice rough from pleasure, grabbing me by the wrist and dragging me up the length of his body. He kissed me hard, cupping the back of my head with one of his big hands, not seeming to mind the taste of himself on my lips. “You will absolutely be the death of me. Now it’s my turn,” he rumbled.

  
He spread me out on my back and returned the favor tenfold, paying close attention to every nook and cranny of my body. He dribbled pear juice on my nipples and sucked it off, repeating this process until I was squirming, then switched to drawing patterns with the pear slices on my torso and licking them clean. He discovered, by kissing them and hearing me shriek with laughter, that the backs of my knees were ticklish, and that scraping his stubble along my neck would make me catch my breath and beg for more. He spent an inordinate amount of time kissing my scars, assuring me in a low voice that he found them incredibly sexy. He found every unconventionally erogenous zone on my body and took shameless advantage of them to turn me into a trembling, moaning ruin of the strong woman I thought I was.

  
When he tired of exploring, he concentrated on the center of my pleasure, which was already practically dripping with arousal, taking a slice of pear and rubbing it along my slit, augmenting my own juices and making me catch my breath at the contrast of the cool fruit against my heated flesh. He spread me with his fingers and took his time tasting my folds and swirling his tongue around my sensitive bud until I was almost screaming. He held my hips still with his large hands, keeping me within reach of his talented mouth when I would have pulled away instinctively.

  
“Fuck, Harkness…please!” I moaned.

  
“Please what?” he teased, knowing very well what I wanted.

  
“Stop tormenting me!” I pleaded. “I can’t take any more!”

  
“Oh, I think you can,” he chuckled darkly, “but I’ll be nice. Let’s try something a little different.”

  
He sat up against the headboard and pulled me up to sit in his lap with my back against his chest, nudging my legs apart with his knees. “Put your arms around my neck,” he directed, and I reached back and laced my hands behind his neck, which had the effect of arching my entire torso up. “I’ll be quick,” he whispered. “For both of us.” I could feel his renewed erection pressing into my back, and I knew he was more than ready for another round.

  
Harkness moved his hands purposefully between my legs, one finger of one hand circling my pearl and the other hand reaching under my ass to get a good angle for inserting a long finger into my womanhood. The gun calluses on his fingers rubbing against my tender flesh was one of the most erotic things I’d ever felt, and I felt warmth start to bloom inside of me at record speed. He kept at it, seemingly knowing exactly how I liked to be touched, and inserting a second finger, making me feel fuller than I’d ever been. In what felt like no time at all, I was bucking my hips against his fingers and gasping for breath while riding the waves of the first orgasm I’d ever had that was caused by someone else.

  
“Oh god, Harkness, that was amazing!” I moaned in his ear, too overcome to be embarrassed that he’d made me fall apart on his hands.

  
“Glad you liked it,” he purred, removing his fingers from me slowly and bringing them up to his mouth to taste my essence.

  
I rolled over to kiss him, bringing my still hyper sensitive sex in contact with his hard length. We both groaned and I rubbed myself against it repeatedly, enjoying the feeling of his heated shaft along my moist channel and reveling in the noises I was drawing from him with every movement.

  
“Slowly,” he murmured. “It can hurt, your first time. You take the lead and decide what feels good for you.”

  
“I want to ride you,” I breathed.

  
“We can work with that,” he said “Let me hold you up while you get situated. Don’t try to take too much of me at once.”

  
One large hand gripped my hip in a hold that was just shy of bruising, but felt good, while the other held his own manhood up ramrod straight so that I could guide myself onto it. There was a little pain, a slight pinching sensation, as I lowered myself onto his member, but nothing I couldn’t handle, and the pain was quickly born away on a tide of pleasure. If I had felt full from just his fingers, I felt absolutely stuffed with his manhood, and I directed a silent blessing to the designer that saw fit to give him such a perfect package.

  
When I felt him bottom out and his balls hit my ass, I paused for a moment to adjust to the new sensation, and saw that Harkness’ eyes were clamped shut and his jaw was clenched, a look of abject pain on his face.

  
“Are you okay?” I worried.

  
“I should be asking you that, but yeah, I’m okay,” he gritted out. “Just…trying not…to come. It’s been a while for me, and I’m still a little sensitive down there.”

  
“So, how does it feel when I do…this?” I clenched my inner muscles around him. His hips jerked so hard that he almost unseated me and I had to grab his shoulders for balance.

  
“Shit!” he cursed. “I’m supposed to be showing you a good time, but I can’t do that if you kill me with pleasure before we’ve even gotten started. Just…don’t move for a minute.”He grabbed my hips to still me when I would have gyrated my pelvis to see what that would do for both of us.

  
“Okay,” he said a few minutes later after a number of deep, even breaths, “you can go now. Show me what you’ve got.”

  
I moved slowly up and down on his shaft, gradually increasing the tempo until I was bouncing rapidly. Harkness arched his hips in counterpoint to my movements, helpfully holding on to my breasts to assist me in keeping my balance, and tweaking my nipples for added sensation.

  
“How’s that feel?” he panted.

  
“Good,” I panted back, “but it’s just not…” I trailed off when I couldn’t find a word for what it wasn’t, but he seemed to understand what I was trying to say, changing the angle of his hips suddenly, hitting a spot inside me that caused me to cry out in ecstasy.

  
“There we go,” he grunted. “That’s what I was looking for. Hang on for the ride.”

  
He began bucking underneath me like an untamed pre-war horse, and I leaned back to grab his legs for balance, keening like a banshee as he kept hitting just the right spot.

  
“Aaah…Harkness…I’m…!” I couldn’t continue, instead moaning wordlessly as the pleasure overcame my ability to speak.

  
His thumb came up to circle my sensitive bud. “Come for me!” he growled, and I had no choice but to comply. I shrieked as I convulsed around him, my inner muscles spasming and clenching around him as I hit my peak.

  
“Fuck me, that was hot!” he breathed, then flipped us over so I was on the bottom and began pounding into me ferociously, pistoning his hips as fast as he could go. “Oh shit, I’m gonna…!” I clenched my inner muscles around him again, and he groaned loudly through his teeth, still thrusting erratically as he came.

  
“Shit!” he moaned, pulling out and collapsing onto the bed, rolling onto the opposite side so he wouldn’t crush me. He put his arm out and I happily snuggled under it, curling along his side with my head on his chest.

  
“So that’s sex,” I mused, feeling his chest heave underneath my head as he struggled to catch his breath. “Can we do it again?” I gave him a hopeful look from under my eyelashes, which was completely lost on him, as he had his own eyes closed, but he gave a breathy laugh at my tone.

  
“That’s sex,” he panted, “and I’d love to go again if you’re up for it, but give an old man a few minutes, okay? I’m pretty sure I’ve got a built in refractory period, and it’ll take me a bit before I can get it up again.”

  
“Thanks,” I murmured, kissing his chest.

  
“What for?” he inquired.

  
“For giving me a night to remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, fully consummated sexy times between Elle and Harkness. Took me long enough, didn't it?


	23. Daylight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Maroon 5 - Daylight.

**Daylight**

  
**Harkness**

  
We made love several more times that night, each time more spectacular than the last, which was saying something since the first time had been so great. I tried my best to wear Elle out so she’d stop worrying and get some sleep, and I was moderately successful in that aim. As I lay in the dark hotel room with her tucked up under my arm, her head resting on my chest, listening to her even breathing, I reflected on how strange our relationship had been up to this point. We’d connected so quickly on such a personal level, and I had to admit, we were an odd pair; a wide-eyed teenage adventurer and a runaway android who thought he was a grumpy old soldier. But we made it work after a fashion, and it was almost like love at first sight, if you could call it that.

  
Then it hit me. Love was exactly what I’d call it! Somehow, some way, Elle had snuck herself into my heart and soul and I’d fallen in love her without even realizing I was doing it. I could hardly believe that I could even fall in love, given that I wasn’t even technically human, but my human memories recognized it for what it was. For just a moment, I was absolutely terrified. What if Elle didn’t feel the same? What if she’d just wanted to get laid and I was convenient? What if she didn’t want to be saddled with an old synth almost twice her age?

  
I held her a little closer, and she responded by throwing her leg over me and burrowing her face into my chest. I reassured myself that she couldn’t possibly be that mercenary; this was Elle, after all, and she could barely tell a lie with a straight face. Worrying about whether or not Elle returned my feelings would get me nowhere, so I forced myself to fall asleep and not spend the entire night staring at the ceiling.

  
************

  
Elle had said she needed to be up before the sun the next day, so I set my internal alarm for an ungodly hour of the morning and dutifully woke her up at the appointed time. I could tell she was still nervous about the coming battle, but she seemed a little more relaxed since our night of lovemaking, even cracking a joke or two with me as I helped her get ready. I assisted her with her armor, checking every buckle and connection twice to make sure that they wouldn’t give way in battle. As I ran my hands over the plates of her armor, I checked for structural integrity in each one. When she’d recalled my android memories, I had discovered that the hunches I sometimes had when I thought myself only human were actually the result of very low level scanning equipment built into my frame. I’d had more exacting scanners before, but had traded them to Pinkerton as part of his fee for making me forget who I was, and I found that I didn’t really miss having the extended senses that they had granted me.

  
When Elle was dressed and armed, I forced her to eat a little something so she wouldn’t be going out on an empty stomach. After she’d crammed enough food into her mouth to satisfy me, I escorted her up to the entrance, trying to make the moment last before she crossed the bridge and left me behind, perhaps forever. She steadfastly refused to let me go with her, saying that she had to handle this by herself, and I didn’t want to get into an argument about it right before she went off to fight a possibly losing battle.

  
“Elle, I…” I opened my mouth to tell her that I loved her, but reconsidered. If I told her now, it might distract her, divert her attention at a critical moment into thinking about what I’d said, might get her killed.

  
“Harkness, what?” she gave me a curious look.

  
“Just…come back to me,” I said softly.

  
“If I can, I will,” she said, equally as softly. “I’ll always come back to you, if I’m able.”

  
She kissed me sweetly, her lips lingering on mine for a long moment, then set out over the bridge, taking my heart with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the super short chapter, but now on to the grand finish.


	24. What We Do For Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is David Guetta feat Emile Sande - What I Did For Love.
> 
> Here we are, folks, the big finish.

**What We Do For Love**

  
**Trielle**

  
“I’m sorry. I wish there were some other way, but there’s just no time. It has to be done now, or the damage will be catastrophic!”

  
Doctor Li’s words rang out through the intercom like a death knell, specifically my death knell. Things had actually been going well with the mission to retake the purifier. Liberty Prime, the Brotherhood’s giant robot, had performed as promised, clearing us a path to the Jefferson Memorial and deflecting most of the artillery bombardments that the Enclave threw at us. Despite our small numbers, the members of Lyons’ Pride and I managed to carve our way through the remaining Enclave troops that Liberty Prime missed and emerge victorious outside the gift shop entrance to the memorial. We entered and mopped up the last few bits of resistance, then Sarah Lyons and I headed for the rotunda.

  
I should have known that I hadn’t seen the last of that bastard, Colonel Autumn, despite blowing up the Enclave’s base at Raven Rock with him presumably inside of it at the time. The man had more lives than a pre-war cat, but I was determined that he wouldn’t be leaving this meeting alive, in spite of his two mini-gun wielding bodyguards. He spouted his usual propagandist bullshit, and I calmly dispatched his companions with Harkness’ trusty plasma rifle, then turned it on the Colonel.

  
“Any last words?” I barked.

  
“The Enclave will rise again!”

  
“Like hell!” I popped him in the head with my rifle and watched his body fall into the waters surrounding the control room. “Try coming back from that, asshole!”

  
Sarah barely had time to congratulate me when we heard Doctor Li’s urgent voice over the intercom. She informed us that the Project Purity facility had been seriously damaged in the fighting, and also possibly through Enclave sabotage, and that one of us was going to have to enter the control room, filled with enough radiation to be almost instantly lethal, and turn on the purifier to keep it from exploding.

  
Blood roared through my ears as I realized what her words meant. One of us wouldn’t be coming back from this mission. One of us, Sarah Lyons or myself, would be sacrificing our lives for the promise of clean water for all the peoples of the Capital Wasteland.

  
“So, what should we do? Draw straws?” Sarah’s tone was deliberately casual, belying the sick look on her face at the realization that I’d be sending her to her death…or she’d be sending me to mine.

  
Despite the almost paralyzing fear curdling in my veins, I knew there was really no choice about which one of us would be activating the purifier. My parents had started it, and I would finish it. The entire Miraven family would have lived and died for the dream of clean water in the wastes, as it should be. I really wished that I’d been wrong in my prediction to Harkness that I wouldn’t be coming back from this mission, but I hoped that he’d be able to find happiness again when I was gone.

  
“I’ll do it,” I said resolutely. “I’ll start the purifier.”

  
“You’re going to have to be quick about it,” Sarah said. “If the radiation is bad enough, you won’t have much time.”

  
“I know,” I said, popping a triple dose of Rad-X in my mouth. Now was not the time to be worrying about an overdose of the radiation resistance medicine, and it might help me last a little longer in the irradiated control room. “Sarah, will…will you do something for me?”

  
“Anything, my friend.”

  
“Tell Harkness I love him,” I said softly.

  
“I will.” Sarah was almost in tears, a first for the leader of the Lyons’ Pride, but she put on a brave face for me. “I won’t forget what you’ve done here,” she said quickly. “No one will. Thank you.”

  
I nodded, my throat too thick with unshed tears to reply, and stepped into the airlock for the control room, hearing the door seal behind me with a grim finality. As the door to the control room opened, the radiation hit me like a sledgehammer, and I nearly keeled over right there, only making it to the control panel through sheer force of will.

  
“Revelations 21:6,” I intoned through numb lips as I punched in the code, drawn from my mother’s favorite passage in the Bible. “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life, freely.” My finger hovered over the last button, the one that would enter the passcode and activate the purifier. “I’m so sorry, Harkness,” I sobbed, tears running freely down my face at last as I pushed the button. I collapsed onto the control panel, overcome by the radiation, and as the purifier began to whir and hum, a blinding flash of white light overrode my vision, and I knew no more.

  
************

  
“If this is what the afterlife looks like, I’m not impressed.” I couldn’t quite stop the sarcasm as I opened my eyes and blinked in the dim light of what looked very like the medical clinic at the Citadel. “Where am I? What the hell happened?”

  
Elder Lyons stepped forward to assure me that I had not, in fact, died when the purifier was activated, but rather been knocked out by an energy surge that incapacitated me and Sarah, and that we’d both been brought to the Citadel to recuperate. He advised me that I’d been in a coma for two weeks, that Sarah still was in a coma herself, and that the Lyons’ Pride was busy rounding up the remnants of the Enclave and, I hope, shooting them all somewhere extremely painful. The purifier had worked, he said, the tidal basin was full of clean water, which they were hard at work distributing to all four corners of the wastes, and by the way, they could really use my help with a number of tasks, now that I was back on my feet.

  
“She needs at least a month to heal, far away from you people, then she might think about helping you,” rasped a familiar voice from across the room.

  
“Harkness!” I shrieked. I tried to extricate myself from the gurney I was sitting on, and only managed to nearly fall on my ass as my legs wobbled underneath me.

  
“Easy there, sweetheart.” He scooped me up and deposited me back on the gurney, then bent me over his arm in a passionate kiss that left me breathless.

  
“I’ll…just leave you two alone then,” Elder Lyons stammered, beating a hasty retreat from the clinic.

  
“I’m so glad to see you!” I cried, burying my face in the crook of his neck. “When did you get here?”

  
“I’ve been here the whole time,” he murmured into my hair. “Ever since they brought you back.” He chuckled. “They tried to deny me entrance and I may have…punched a hole through the outer door, so they had to let me in.”

  
I laughed at that. “Get me out of this murky hellhole, Harkness. I need some sunshine.”

  
“Your wish is my command.” He swept me up in his arms and carried me outside, sitting down in one of the chairs in the courtyard with me in his lap. I managed to get a good look at him in the sunlight, and I didn’t like what I saw. His eyes were red rimmed, his chin had a liberal covering of stubble, and he looked like he hadn’t slept or eaten much for the last two weeks.

  
“You look like hell,” I told him.

  
“It’s been two weeks of hell,” he said softly. “They assured me that you would wake up eventually, but you just lay there like a puppet with the strings cut, and you were so pale and cold…”

  
“I’m back now,” I said, cupping his cheek and giving him a reassuring kiss. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

  
“Elle, I…have to tell you something,” he let out in a rush. “I…I love you. I wanted to tell you before you left, but…”

  
“It’s okay,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to explain yourself. I love you too.”

  
“You do?” He looked incredulous.

  
“Yes, you silly man, I love you!” I swatted him on the shoulder. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  
“But…but…I’m a grumpy old fart,” he protested. “And a synth,” he whispered.

  
“You already know I don’t care about that,” I chided, “so why should you care about it?”

  
A wondering look came over his face. “You really love me,” he said in amazement. He laughed, the most joyful sound I had ever heard come out of his mouth, then captured my lips in a scorching hot kiss that ended with me very nearly fucking him on that chair, in full view of all the Brotherhood initiates.

  
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he said, “but I can’t picture my life without you in it. Let’s get you home so I can show you just how glad I am to have you back.” He helped me stand and kept his arm around me as we headed out the main gate and back to Rivet City.

  
“Is now a bad time to tell you that I’ve got a dog?”

  
His laughter rang out over the wasteland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it then, all 66 and some thousand words of it. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.


End file.
